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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
EDWIN  CORLE 

PRESENTED  BY 
JEAN  CORLE 


v^. 


THE  WORKS  OF 

FRANCIS  THOMPSON 

POEMS:  VOLUME  I 


Twelfth  Thousand 


^tunmplcrTz) 


at  the  a<je  of  nineteen . 


THE  WORKS  OF 
FRANCIS  THOMPSON 

POEMS :  VOLUME  I 


New  York  : 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

597-599   l''ifth  Avenue 


THE  ANCnOa  PllESS,  LTD.,  TIFTREE,  ESSEX,  ENGLAND. 


ii0a7fj7'1 


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Annex 


5157) 


A  NOTE  by  Francis  Thompson's 
Literary  Executor 

IN  making   this  Collection  I  have  been  governed  f^  I 

by  Francis  Thompson's   express  instructions,    or  »  "i     ^ 

guided  by  a  knowledge  of  his  feelings    and  pre-  f  '^  «^ 

ferences  acquired  during  an  unbroken  intimacy  of 
nineteen  years.  His  own  list  of  new  inclusions  and 
his  own  suggested  reconsiderations  of  his  formerly 
published  text  have  been  followed  in  this  definitive 
edition  of  his  Poetical  ^^'orks. 
?slay  191 3.  W.M. 


V  I 


THE  CONTENTS 

Dedication  of  '  Poems '  page  xv 

Poems  on  Children  : 

Daisy  3 

The  Poppy  6 

To  Monica  thought  Dying  10 

The  Making  of  Viola  13 

To  my  Godchild  17 

To  Olivia  20 

Little  Jesu3  21 

Sister  Songs  : 

The  Proem  25 

Part  the  First  27 

Part  the  Second  40 

Inscription  61 

Love  in  Dian's  Lap  : 

Procmion  71 

Before  her  Portrait  in  Youth  77 

To  a  Poet  Breaking  Silence  79 

*  Manus  Animam  Pinxit '  82 

A  Carrier  Song  85 

Scala  Jacobi  Portaquc  Eburnea  89 

Gilded  Gold  90 

Her  Portrait  92 

Epilogue  to  the  Poet's  Sitter  98 

Domus  Tua  100 

In  her  Paths  loi 

After  her  Going  102 

Beneath   a   Photograph  104 


CONTENTS 

The  Hound  of  Heaven  107 

Ode  to  the  Setting  Sun  : 

Prelude  117 

Ode  118 

After-Strain  126 

To  the  Dead  Cardinal  of  Westminster  131 

A  Corymbus  for  Autumn  141 

Ecclesiastical  Ballads : 

The  Veteran  of  Heaven  149 

Lilium  Regis  151 

Translations : 

A  Sunset  155 

Heard  on  the  Mountain  158 

An  Echo  of  Viftor  Hugo  163 

Miscellaneous  Poems : 

Dream -Tryst  167 

Arab  Love- Song  168 

Buona  Notte  169 

The  Passion  of  Mary  171 

Messages  173 

At  Lord's  174 

Love  and  the  Child  175 

Daphne  176 

Absence  1 78 

To  W.  M.  180 

A  Fallen  Yew  181 

A  Judgement  in  Heaven  185 

Epilogue  190 


CONTENTS 

The  Sere  of  the  Leaf  102 

To  Stars  ic)8 
For  a  Drawing  of  Our  Lady  of  the  Night         200 

Orison-Tryst  201 

'  Whereto  art  Thou  Come  ?  '  203 

Song  of  the  Hours  204 

Pastoral  211 

Past  Thiijking  of  Solomon  213 

A  Dead  Astronomer  215 

Cheated  Elsie  216 

The  Fair  Inconstant  220 

Threatened  Tears  221 

The  House  of  Sorrows  222 

Insentience  225 

Envoy  226 


DEDICATION   OF    "POSSMS 

(1893) 

7o  Wilfrid  and  Alice  Meynell 

IF  the  rose  in  meek  duty 
May  dedicate  humbly 
To  her  grower  the  beauty 

Wherewith  she  is  comely  ; 
If  the  mine  to  the  miner 

The  jewels  that  pined  in  it, 
Earth  to  diviner 

The  springs  he  divined  in  it ; 
To  the  grapes  the  wine-pitcher 

Their  juice  that  was  crushed  in  it, 
\'iol  to  its  witcher 

The  music  lay  hushed  in  it ; 
If  the  hps  may  pay  Gladness 

In  laughters  she  wakened. 
And  the  heart  to  its  sadness 

Weeping  unslakened, 
If  the  liid  and  sealed  coffer, 

Whose  having  not  his  is. 
To  the  looscrs  may  proffer 

Their  finding — here  this  is ; 
Their  lives  if  all  livers 

To  the  Life  of  all  living, — 
To  you,  O  dear  givers  ! 

I  give  your  own  giving. 


poems  ON  CHILDRS^ 


w 


DAISY 

HERE  the  thistle  lifts  a  purple  crovvn 
Six  foot  out  of  the  turf, 
And  the  harebell  shakes  on  the  windy  hill- 
O  the  breath  of  the  distant  surf ! — 


The  hills  look  over  on  the  South, 
And  southward  dreams  the  sea  ; 

And  with  the  sea-breeze  hand  in  hand 
Came  innocence  and  she. 

Where  'mid  the  gorse  the  raspberry 
Red  for  the  gatherer  springs. 

Two  children  did  we  stray  and  talk 
Wise,  idle,  childish  things. 

She  listened  with  big-lipped  surprise. 
Breast-deep  mid  flower  and  spine  : 

Her  skin  was  like  a  grape  whose  veins 
Run  snow  instead  of  wine. 

She  knew  not  those  sweet  words  she  spake, 
Nor  knew  her  own  sweet  way  ; 

But  there's  never  a  bird,  so  sweet  a  song 
Thronged  in  whose  throat  that  day. 

Oh,  there  were  flowers  in  Storrington 
On  the  turf  and  on  the  spray  ; 

But  the  sweetest  flower  on  Sussex  hills 
Was   the  Daisy-flower  that  day  ! 


L2 


POEMS  ON  CHILDREN 

Her  beauty  smoothed  earth's  furrowed  face. 

She  gave  me  tokens  three  : — 
A  look,  a  word  of  her  winsome  mouth, 

And  a  wild  raspberry. 

A  berry  red,  a  guileless  look, 

A  still  word, — strings  of  sand  ! 
And  yet  they  made  my  wild,  wild  heart 

Fly  down  to  her  little  hand. 

For  standing  artless  as  the  air, 

And  candid  as  the  skies, 
She  took  the  berries  with  her  hand. 

And  the  love  with  her  sweet  eyes. 

The  fairest  things  have  fleetest  end. 
Their  scent  survives  their  close  : 

But  the  rose's  scent  is  bitterness 
To  him  that  loved  the  rose. 

She  looked  a  little  wistfully. 

Then  went  her  sunshine  way  : — 

The  sea's  eye  had  a  mist  on  it. 
And  the  leaves  fell  from  the  day. 

She  went  her  unremembering  way. 

She  went  and  left  in  me 
The  pang  of  all  the  partings  gone, 

And  partings  yet  to  be. 

She  left  me  marvelling  why  my  soul 

Was  sad  that  she  was  glad  ; 
At  all  the  sadness  in  the  sweet. 

The  sweetness  in  the  sad. 


DAISY 

Still,  still  I  seemed  to  see  her,  still 
Look  up  with  soft  replies, 

And  take  the  berries  with  her  hand. 
And  the  love  with  her  lovely  eyes. 

Nothing  begins,  and  nothing  ends, 
That  is  not  paid  with  moan  ; 

For  we  are  born  in  other's  pain, 
And  perish  in  our  own. 


THE  POPPY 

To   Monica 

UMMER  set  lip  to  earth's  bosom  bare, 
And  left  the  flushed  print  in  a  poppy  there  : 
Like  a  yawn  of  fire  from  the  grass  it  came, 
And  the  fanning  wind  puffed  it  to  flapping  flame. 

With  burnt  mouth,  red  like  a  lion's,  it  drank 
The  blood  of  the  sun  as  he  slaughtered  sank. 
And  dipped  its  cup  in  the  purpurate  shine 
When  the  Eastern  conduits  ran  with  wine. 

Till  it  grew  lethargied  with  fierce  bliss, 
And  hot  as  a  swinked  gipsy  is. 
And  drowsed  in  sleepy  savageries, 
W^ith  mouth  wide  a-pout  for  a  sultry  kiss. 


A  child  and  man  paced  side  by  side, 
Treading  the  skirts  of  eventide  ; 
But  between  the  clasp  of  his  hand  and  hers 
Lay,  felt  not,  twenty  withered  years. 

She  turned,  with  the  rout  of  her  dusk  South  hair. 
And  saw  the  sleeping  gipsy  there  ; 
And  snatched  and  snapped  it  in  swift  child's  whim, 
With — "  Keep  it,  long  as  you  live  !  " — to  him. 


THE  POPPY 

And  his  ?milc,  as  nymphs  from  their  laving  meres, 
Trembled  up  from  a  bath  of  tears ; 
And  joy,  like  a  mew  sea-rocked  apart, 
Tossed  on  the  waves  of  his  troubled  heart. 

For  he  saw  what  she  did  not  see, 
That — as  kindled  by  its  own  fervency — 
The  verge  shrivelled  inward  smoulderingly  : 
And  suddenly  'twixt  his  hand  and  hers 
He  knew  the  twenty  withered  years — 
No  flower,  but  twenty  shrivelled  years. 

"  Was  never  such  thing  until  this  hour," 
Low  to  his  heart  he  said  ;  "  the  flower 
Of  sleep  brings  wakening  to  me. 
And  of  oblivion,  memory." 

"  Was  never  this  thing  to  me,"  he  said, 

"  Though  with  bruised  poppies  my  feet  are  red  !  " 

And  again  to  his  own  heart  very  low  : 

"  O  child  !  I  love,  for  I  love  and  know  ; 

"  But  you,  who  love  nor  know  at  all 

The  diverse  chambers  in  Love's  guest-hall, 

Where  some  rise  early,  few  sit  long  : 

In  how  differing  accents  hear  the  throng 

His  great  Pentecostal  tongue  ; 

"  Who  know  not  love  from  amity, 

Nor  my  reported  self  from  me  ; 

A  fair  fit  gift  is  this,  mcseems. 

You  give — this  withering  flower  of  dreams. 


POEMS  ON  CHILDREN 

*'  O  frankly  fickle,  and  fickly  true, 
Do  you  know  what  the  days  wiU  do  to  you  ? 
To  your  love  and  you  what  the  days  will  do 
O  frankly  fickle,  and  fickly  true  ? 

"  i^ou  have  loved  me.  Fair,  three  Uves-or  days : 
1  will  pass  with  the  passing  of  my  face. 
But  where  /  go,  your  face  goes  too, 
To  watch  lest  I  play  false  to  you. 

"I  am  but,  my  sweet,  your  foster-lover. 
Knowing  weU  when  certain  years  are  over 
You  vanish  from  me  to  another ; 
Yet  I  know,  and  love,  like  the  foster-mother. 

"  So,  frankly  fickle,  and  fickly  true ! 
For  my  brief  life- while  I  take  from  you 
This  token,  fair  and  fit,  meseems. 
For  me— this  withering  flower  of  dreams." 

The  sleep-flower  sways  in  the  wheat  its  head. 
Heavy  with  dreams,  as  that  with  bread  : 
The  goodly  grain  and  the  sun-flushed  sleeper 
1  he  reaper  reaps,  and  Time  the  reaper. 

I  hang  'mid  men  my  needless  head, 

And  my  fruit  is  dreams,  as  theirs  is  bread  ; 

The  goodly  men  and  the  sun-hazed  sleeper 

Time  shall  reap,  but  after  the  reaper 

The  world  shall  glean  of  me,  me  the  sleeper. 

8 


THE  POPPY 

Love,  love  !  your  flower  of  withered  dream 
In  leaved  rhyme  lies  safe,  I  deem, 
Sheltered  and  shut  in  a  nook  of  rhyme. 
From  the  reaper  man,  and  his  reaper  Time. 

Love  !  /  fall  into  the  claws  of  Time ; 

But  lasts  within  a  leaved  rhyme 

All  that  the  world  of  me  esteems — 

My  withered  dreams,  my  withered  dreams. 


TO  MONICA  THOUGHT 
DYING 

You,  O  the  piteous  you  ! 
Who  all  the  long  night  through 
Anticipatedly 

Disclose  yourself  to  me 

Already  in  the  ways 
Beyond  our  human  comfortable  days ; 

How  can  you  deem  what  Death 

Impitiably  saith 

To  me,  who  listening  wake 

For  your  poor  sake  ? 

When  a  grown  woman  dies 
You  know  we  think  unceasingly 
What  things  she  said,  how  sweet,  how  wise ; 
And  these  do  make  our  misery. 

But  you  were  (you  to  me 
The  dead  anticipatedly !) 
You — eleven  years,  was't  not,  or  so  ? — 

Were  just  a  child,  you  know ; 

And  so  you  never  said 
Things  sweet  immeditatably  and  wise 
To  interdict  from  closure  my  wet  eyes : 

But  foolish  things,  my  dead,  my  dead  ! 

Little  and  laughable, 

Your  age  that  fitted  well. 
And  was  it  such  things  all  unmemorable, 

Was  it  such  things  could  make 
Me  sob  all  night  for  your  implacable  sake  ? 


10 


TO  MONICA  THOUGHT  DYING 

Yet,  as  you  said  to  me, 
In  pretty  make-believe  of  revelry, 

So  the  night  long  said  Death 

With  his  magniloquent  breath  ; 
(And  that  remembered  laughter, 
W'hicli  in  our  daily  uses  followed  after, 
Was  all  untuned  to  pity  and  to  awe  :) 
"  A  cup  of  chocolate. 
One  farthing  is  the  rate, 
Tou  drink  it  through  a  straw." 

How  could  I  know,  how  know 
Those  laughing  words  when  drenched  with  sobbing  so  ? 
Another  voice  than  yours,  than  yours,  he  hath. 

My  dear,  was't  worth  his  breath, 
His  mighty  utterance  ? — yet  he  saith,  and  saith  ! 
This  dreadful  Death  to  his  own  dreadfulness 

Doth  dreadful  wrong. 
This  dreadful  childish  babble  on  his  tongue. 
That  iron  tongue  made  to  speak  sentences, 
And  wisdom  insupportably  complete. 
Why  should  it  only  say  the  long  night  through, 

In  mimicry  of  you, — 

"  A  cup  of  chocolate. 

One  farthing  is  the  rate, 
Tou  drink  it  through  a  straw,  a  straw,  a  straw  !  '* 

Oh,  of  all  sentences, 
Piercingly  incomplete  ! 
Why  did  you  teach  that  fatal  mouth  to  draw, 
Child,  impermissible  awe. 


II 


POEMS  ON  CHILDREN 

From  your  old  trivialness  ? 
Why  have  you  done  me  this 
Most  unsustainable  wrong, 
And  into  Death's  control 
Betrayed  the  secret  places  of  my  soul  ? — 

Teaching  him  that  his  lips, 
Uttering  their  native  earthquake  and  eclipse, 

Could  never  so  avail 
To  rend  from  hem  to  hem  the  ultimate  veil 
Of  this  most  desolate 
Spirit,  and  leave  it  stripped  and  desecrate, — 

Nay,  never  so  have  wrung 
From  eyes  and  speech  weakness  unmanned,  unmeet. 
As  when  his  terrible  dotage  to  repeat 
Its  little  lesson  learneth  at  your  feet ; 
As  when  he  sits  among 
His  sepulchres,  to  play 
With  broken  toys  your  hand  has  cast  away. 
With  derelict  trinkets  of  the  darling  young. 
Why  have  you  taught — that  he  might  so  complete 
His  awful  panoply 
From  your  cast  playthings — why, 
This  dreadful  childish  babble  to  his  tongue, 
Dreadful  and  sweet  i 


12 


THE  MAKING  OF  VIOLA 


I 

The  Father  of  H raven. 

PIN,  daughter  Mary,  spin, 
Twirl  your  wheel  with  silver  din  ; 
Spin,  daughter  Mary,  spin. 
Spin  a  tress  for  Viola. 


0]  nt 

S; 


Angels. 


Spin,  Queen  Mary,  a 
Brown  tress  for  Viola  ! 


II 

The  Father  of  Heaven. 

Weave,  hands  angelical, 
Weave  a  woof  of  flesh  to  pall- 
Weave,  hands  angelical — 
Flesh  to  pall  our  Viola. 

Angels. 

Weave,  singing  brothers,  a 
Velvet  flesh  for  Viola  ! 


Ill 

The  Father  of  Heaven. 

Scoop,  young  Jesus,  for  her  eye?, 
Wood-browned  pools  of  Paradise- 
Young  Jesus,  for  the  eyes. 
For  the  eyes  of  Viola. 


13 


Angels. 


POEMS  ON  CHILDREN 


Tint,  Prince  Jesus,  a 
Dusked  eye  for  Viola  ! 


IV 

The  Father  of  Heaven. 

Cast  a  star  therein  to  drown, 
Like  a  torch  in  cavern  brown, 
Sink  a  burning  star  to  drown 
Whelmed  in  eyes  of  Viola. 

Angels. 

Lave,  Prince  Jesus,  a 
Star  in  eyes  of  Viola  ! 

V 

The  Father  of  Heaven. 

Breathe,  Lord  Paraclete, 
To  a  bubbled  crystal  meet — 
Breathe,  Lord  Paraclete — 
Crystal  soul  for  Viola. 


Angels. 


Breathe,  Regal  Spirit,  a 
Flashing  soul  for  Viola  ! 


VI 

The  Father  of  Heaven. 

Child-angels,  from  your  wings 
Fall  the  roseal  hoverings. 
Child-angels,  from  your  wings. 
On  the  cheeks  of  Viola. 


H 


Angels. 


THE  MAKING  OF  VIOLA 


Linger,  rosy  reflc:?,  a 
Quenchless  stain,  on  Viola ! 


VII 

All  things  being  accomplished^  saith  the  Father  of  Heaven 
Bear  her  down,  and  bearing,  sing, 
Bear  her  down  on  spyless  wing. 
Bear  her  down,  and  bearing,  sing. 
With  a  sound  of  viola. 


Angels. 


Angels. 


Music  as  her  name  is,  a 
Sweet  sound  of  \'iola  ! 

VIII 

Wheehng  angels,  past  espial, 
Danced  her  down  with  sound  of  viol ; 
Wheehng  angels,  past  espial, 
Descanting  on  "  Viola." 

Sing,  in  our  footing,  a 
Lovely  hit  of "  Viola  !  " 


IX 

Baby  smiled,  mother  wailed. 
Earthward  while  the  sweetling  sailed  ; 
Mother  smiled,  baby  wailed, 
When  to  earth  came  Viola. 
And  her  elders  shall  say  : 

So  soon  have  we  taught  you  a 
Way  to  weep,  poor  Viola ! 


If 


POEMS  ON  CHILDREN 

X 

Smile,  sweet  baby,  smile, 
For  you  will  have  weeping-while ; 
Native  in  your  Heaven  is  smile, — 
But  your  weeping,  Viola  ? 

Whence  your  smiles  we  know,  but  ah ! 
Whence  your  weeping,  Viola  f — 
Our  first  gift  to  you  is  a 
Gift  of  tears,  my  Viola ! 


TO  MY  GODCHILD 

Fraficis  M.  W.  M. 

THIS  labouring,  vast,  Tellurian  galleon, 
Riding  at  anchor  off  the  orient  sun, 
Had  broken  its  cable,  and  stood  out  to  space 
Down  some  frore  Arctic  of  the  aerial  ways : 
And  now,  back  warping  from  the  inclement  main. 
Its  vaporous  shroudage  drenched  with  icy  rain, 
It  swung  into  its  azure  roads  again  ; 
When,  floated  on  the  prosperous  sun-gale,  you 
Lit,  a  white  halcyon  auspice,  'mid  our  frozen  crew. 

To  the  Sun,  stranger,  surely  you  belong, 

Giver  of  golden  days  and  golden  song  ; 

Nor  is  it  by  an  all-unhappy  plan 

You  bear  the  name  of  me,  his  constant  Magian. 

Yet  ah  !  from  any  other  that  it  came. 

Lest  fated  to  my  fate  you  be,  as  to  my  name. 

When  at  the  first  those  tidings  did  they  bring. 

My  heart  turned  troubled  at  the  ominous  thing  : 

Though  well  may  such  a  title  him  endower. 

For  whom  a  poet's  prayer  implores  a  poet's  power. 

The  Assisian,  who  kept  phghted  faith  to  three, 

To  Song,  to  San6litude,  and  Poverty, 

(In  two  alone  of  whom  most  singers  prove 

A  fatal  faithfulness  of  during  love  !) ; 

He  the  sweet  Sales,  of  whom  we  scarcely  ken 

How  God  he  could  love  more,  he  so  loved  men  ; 

The  crown  and  crowned  of  Laura  and  Italy  ; 

And  Fletcher's  fellow — from  these,  and  not  from  mc, 

Take  you  your  name,  and  take  your  legacy  ! 


»7 


POEMS  ON  CHILDREN 

Or,  if  a  right  successive  you  declare 

When  worms,  for  ivies,  intertwine  my  hair, 

Take  but  this  Poesy  that  now  followeth 

My  clayey  hest  with  sullen  servile  breath. 

Made  then  your  happy  f reedman  by  testating  death. 

My  song  I  do  but  hold  for  you  in  trust, 

I  ask  you  but  to  blossom  from  my  dust. 

When  you  have  compassed  all  weak  I  began, 

Diviner  poet,  and  ah  !  diviner  man  ; 

The  man  at  feud  with  the  perduring  child 

In  you  before  Song's  altar  nobly  reconciled  ; 

From  the  wise  heavens  I  half  shall  smile  to  see 

How  little  a  world,  which  owned  you,  needed  me. 

If,  while  you  keep  the  vigils  of  the  night, 

For  your  wild  tears  make  darkness  all  too  bright, 

Some  lone  orb  through  your  lonely  window  peeps, 

As  it  played  lover  over  your  sweet  sleeps ; 

Think  it  a  golden  crevice  in  the  sky, 

Which  I  have  pierced  but  to  behold  you  by ! 

And  when,  immortal  mortal,  droops  your  head, 
And  you,  the  child  of  deathless  song,  are  dead ; 
Then,  as  you  search  with  unaccustomed  glance 
The  ranks  of  Paradise  for  my  countenance. 
Turn  not  your  tread  along  the  Uranian  sod 
Among  the  bearded  counsellors  of  God ; 
For  if  in  Eden  as  on  earth  are  we, 
I  sure  shall  keep  a  younger  company : 
Pass  where  beneath  their  ranged  gonfalons 
The  starry  cohorts  shake  their  shielded  suns, 
The  dreadful  mass  of  their  enridged  spears ; 


x8 


TO  MY  GODCHILD 

Pass  where  majestical  the  eternal  peers, 

The  stately  choice  of  the  great  Saintdom,  meet — 

A  silvern  segregation,  globed  complete 

In  sandalled  shadow  of  the  Triune  feet ; 

Pass  by  where  wait,  young  poet-wayfarer, 

Your  cousincd  clusters,  emulous  to  share 

With  you  the  roseal  lightnings  burning  'mid  their  hair 

Pass  the  crystalline  sea,  the  Lampads  ;^evcn  : — • 

Look  for  me  in  the  nurseries  of  Heaven. 


19  C2 


TO  OLIVIA 

1FEAR  to  love  thee,  Sweet,  because 
Love's  the  ambassador  of  loss ; 
White  flake  of  childhood,  clinging  so 
To  my  soiled  raiment,  thy  shy  snow 
At  tenderest  touch  will  shrink  and  go. 
Love  me  not,  delightful  child. 
My  heart,  by  many  snares  beguiled, 
Has  grown  timorous  and  wild. 
It  would  fear  thee  not  at  all, 
Wert  thou  not  so  harmless-small. 
Because  thy  arrows,  not  yet  dire, 
Are  still  unbarbed  with  destined  fire, 
I  fear  thee  more  than  hadst  thou  stood 
Full-panoplied  in  womanhood. 


20 


LITTLE  JESUS 

^.r  ore  infantium,  DeuSy  ct  lactenfium 
perfecisti  laud  em 

LITTLE  Jesus,  wast  Thou  shy 
Once,  and  just  so  small  as  I  ? 
-^And  what  did  it  feel  hke  to  be 
Out  of  Heaven,  and  just  like  me  ? 
Didst  Thou  sometimes  think  of  there. 
And  ask  where  all  the  angels  were  ? 
I  should  think  that  I  would  cry 
For  my  house  all  made  of  sky  ; 
I  would  look  about  the  air, 
And  wonder  where  my  angels  were  ; 
And  at  waking  'twould  distress  me — 
Not  an  angel  there  to  dress  me  ! 
Hadst  Thou  ever  any  toys. 
Like  us  little  girls  and  boys  ? 
And  didst  Thou  play  in  Heaven  with  all 
The  angels  that  were  not  too  tall, 
With  stars  for  marbles  ?  Did  the  things 
Play  Can  you  see  me  F  through  their  wings  ? 
And  did  Thy  Mother  let  Thee  spoil 
Thy  robes,  with  playing  on  our  soil  i 
How  nice  to  have  them  always  new 
In  Heaven,  because  'twas  quite  clean  blue  ' 

Didst  Thou  kneel  at  night  to  pray, 
And  didit  Thou  join  Thy  hands,  this  way  ? 
And  did  they  tire  sometimes,  being  young, 
And  make  the  prayer  seem  very  long  ? 


ai 


POEMS  ON  CHILDREN 

And  dost  Thou  like  it  best,  that  we 
Should  join  our  hands  to  pray  to  Thee  ? 
I  used  to  think,  before  I  knew. 
The  prayer  not  said  unless  we  do. 
And  did  Thy  Mother  at  the  night 
Kiss  Thee,  and  fold  the  clothes  in  right  ? 
And  didst  Thou  feel  quite  good  in  bed, 
Kissed,  and  sweet,  and  Thy  prayers  said  r 

Thou  canst  not  have  forgotten  all 

That  it  feels  like  to  be  small : 

And  Thou  know'st  I  cannot  pray 

To  Thee  in  my  father's  way — 

When  Thou  wast  so  little,  say, 

Couldst  Thou  talk  Thy  Father's  way  ? — 

So,  a  little  Child,  come  down 

And  hear  a  child's  tongue  like  Thy  own  ; 

Take  me  by  the  hand  and  walk, 

And  listen  to  my  baby-talk. 

To  Thy  Father  show  my  prayer 

(He  will  look.  Thou  art  so  fair). 

And  say  :  "  O  Father,  I,  Thy  Son, 

Bring  the  prayer  of  a  little  one." 

And  He  will  smile,  that  children's  tongue 
Has  not  changed  since  Thou  wast  young  ! 


22 


SIST6R  SONGS 

AN    OFFERING    TO    TIVO    SISTERS 
MONICA    cif    MADELINE    {STLVIA) 


SISTER  SOxVGS 

AN   OFFERING  TO  TWO   SISTERS 

THE  PROEM 

SHREWD  winds  and  shrill — were  these  the 
speech  of  May  ? 
A  ragged,  slag-grey  sky — invested  so, 
Mary's  spoilt  nursling  !  wert  thou  wont  to  go  ? 
Or  thou,  Sun-god  and  song-god,  say 
Could  singer  pipe  one  tiniest  linnet-lay, 

While  Song  did  turn  away  his  face  from  song  ? 

Or  who  could  be 
In  spirit  or  in  body  hale  for  long, — 

Old  .^sculap's  best  Master  ! — lacking  thee  ? 
At  length,  then,  thou  art  here  ! 
On  the  earth's  lethed  ear 
Thy  voice  of  light  rings  out  exultant,  strong  ; 
Through  dreams  she  stirs  and  murmurs  at  that 
summons  dear  : 
From  its  red  leash  my  heart  strains  tamelessly, 
For  Spring  leaps  in  the  womb  of  the  young  year  ! 
Nay,  was  it  not  brought  forth  before. 
And  we  waited,  to  behold  it. 
Till  the  sun's  hand  should  unfold  it, 
What  the  year's  young  bosom  bore  ? 
Even  so  ;  it  came,  nor  knew  we  that  it  came, 
In  the  sun's  eclipse. 
Yet  the  birds  have  plighted  vows. 
And  from  the  branches  pipe  each  other's  name  ; 


H 


SISTER  SONGS 

Yet  the  season  all  the  boughs 
Has  kindled  to  the  finger-tips, — 
Mark  yonder,  how  the  long  laburnum  drips 
Its  jocund  spilth  of  fire,  its  honey  of  wild  flame  ! 
Yea,  and  myself  put  on  swift  quickening. 
And  answer  to  the  presence  of  a  sudden  Spring. 

From  cloud-zoned  pinnacles  of  the  secret  spirit 

Song  falls  precipitant  in  dizzying  streams ; 
And,  like  a  mountain-hold  when  war-shouts  stir  it, 
The  mind's  recessed  fastness  casts  to  light 
Its  gleaming  multitudes,  that  from  every  height 

Unfurl  the  flaming  of  a  thousand  dreams. 
Now  therefore,  thou  who  bring'st  the  year  to  birth, 

Who  guid'st  the  bare  and  dabbled  feet  of  May  ; 
Sweet  stem  to  that  rose  Christ,  who  from  the  earth 
Suck'st  our  poor  prayers,  conveying  them  to  Him  ; 
Be  aidant,  tender  Lady,  to  my  lay  ! 
Of  thy  two  maidens  somewhat  must  I  say. 
Ere  shadowy  twihght  lashes,  drooping,  dim 
Day's  dreamy  eyes  from  us ; 
Ere  eve  has  struck  and  furled 
The  beamy-textured  tent  transpicuous. 

Of  webbed  coerule  wrought  and  woven  calms, 
Whence  has  paced  forth  the  lambent-footed  sun. 
And  thou  disclose  my  flower  of  song  upcurled, 
Who  from  thy  fair  irradiant  palms 
Scatterest  all  love  and  loveliness  as  alms ; 
Yea,  holy  one. 
Who  coin'st  thyself  to  beauty  for  the  world  ! 


26 


SISTER  SONGS 

7hen,  Springes  little  children,  your  lauds  do  ye  upraise 
To  Sylvia,  O  Sylvia,  her  szoeet,jeat  ways  ! 
Your  lovesome  labours  lay  uzcay. 
And  trick  you  out  in  holiday. 
For  syllabling  to  Sylvia  ; 
And  all  you  birds  on  branches,  lave  your  mouths  tvith  May, 
To  bear  tvith  me  this  burthen. 
For  singing  to  Sylvia. 


PART  THE  FIRST 

THE  leaves  dance,  the  leaves  sing, 
The  leaves  dance  in  the  breath  of  the  Spring. 
I  bid  them  dance, 
I  bid  them  sing, 
For  the  limpid  glance 
Of  my  ladyling  ; 
For  the  gift  to  the  Spring  of  a  dewier  spring, 
For  God's  good  grace  of  this  ladyling  ! 
I  know  in  the  lane,  by  the  hedgerow  track. 

The  long,  broad  grasses  underneath 
Are  warted  with  rain  like  a  toad's  knobbed  back  ; 

But  here  May  wearcth  a  rainless  wreath. 
In  the  new-sucked  milk  of  the  sun's  bosom 
Is  dabbled  the  mouth  of  the  daisy-blossom  ; 

The  smouldering  rosebud  chars  through  its  sheath  ; 
The  lily  stirs  her  snowy  limbs. 

Ere  she  swims 
Naked  up  through  her  cloven  green. 
Like  the  wave-born  Lady  of  Love  Hellene  ; 


27 


SISTER  SONGS 

And  the  scattered  snowdrop  exquisite 
Twinkles  and  gleams, 
As  if  the  showers  of  the  sunny  beams 
Were  splashed  from  the  earth  in  drops  of  light. 
Everything 
That  is  child  of  Spring 
Casts  its  bud  or  blossoming 
Upon  the  stream  of  my  delight. 

Their  voices,  that  scents  are,  now  let  them  upraise 
1o  Sylvia,  O  Sylvia,  her  sweet,  feat  ways  ; 
Their  lovely  mother  them  array. 
And  frank  them  out  in  holiday. 
For  syllabling  to  Sylvia  ; 
And  all  the  birds  on  branches  lave  their  mouths  with  May 
To  bear  with  me  this  burthen. 
For  singing  to  Sylvia. 

While  thus  I  stood  in  mazes  bound 

Of  vernal  sorcery, 
I  heard  a  dainty  dubious  sound. 

As  of  goodly  melody  ; 
Which  first  was  faint  as  if  in  swound, 

Then  burst  so  suddenly 
In  warring  concord  all  around, 
That,  whence  this  thing  might  be, 

To  see 
The  very  marrow  longed  in  me  ! 

It  seemed  of  air,  it  seemed  of  ground, 
And  never  any  witchery 

Drawn  from  pipe,  or  reed,  or  string, 

Made  such  dulcet  ravishing. 


28 


SISTER  SONGS 

'Twas  like  no  tarthly  instrument, 

Yet  had  something  of  them  all 

In  its  rise,  and  in  its  fall ; 
As  if  in  one  sweet  consort  there  were  blent 

Those  archetj'pes  celestial 
Which  our  endeavouring  instruments  recall. 
So  heavenly  flutes  made  murmurous  plain 
To  heavenly  viols,  that  again 
— Aching  with  music — wailed  back  pain  ; 
Regals  release  their  notes,  which  rise 
Welling,  like  tears  from  heart  to  eyes  ; 
And  the  harp  thrills  with  thronging  sighs. 
Horns  in  mellow  flattering 
Parley  with  the  cithern-string  : — 
Hark  ! — the  floating,  long-drawn  note 
Woos  the  throbbing  cithern-string  ! 

Their  pretty,  pretty  prating  those  citherns  sure  upraise 
For  homage  unto  Sylvia,  her  sweet,  jeat  ways  : 
Those  flutes  do  flute  their  vowelled  lay. 
Their  lovely  languid  language  say. 
For  lis  pin  ;^  to  Sylvia  ; 
Those  vioW  lissom  bowings  break  the  heart  oj  May, 
And  harps  harp  their  burthen. 
For  singing  to  Sylvia. 

Now  at  that  music  and  that  mirth 
Rose,  as  'twere,  veils  from  earth  ; 

And  I  spied 

How  beside 
Bud,  bell,  bloom,  an  elf 


29 


SISTER  SONGS 

Stood,  or  was  the  flower  itself ; 

'Mid  radiant  air 

All  the  fair 
Frequence  swayed  in  irised  wavers. 
Some  against  the  gleaming  rims 

Their  bosoms  prest 
Of  the  kingcups,  to  the  brims 
Filled  with  sun,  and  their  white  limbs 
Bathed  in  those  golden  lavers ; 
Some  on  the  brown,  glowing  breast 
Of  that  Indian  maid,  the  pansy 
(Through  its  tenuous  veils  conf est 
Of  swathing  light),  in  a  quaint  fancy 
Tied  her  knot  of  yellow  favours ; 
Others  dared  open  draw 
Snapdragon's  dreadful  jaw : 
Some,  just  sprung  from  out  the  soil, 
Sleeked  and  shook  their  rumpled  fans 

Dropt  with  sheen 

Of  moony  green ; 
Others,  not  yet  extricate, 
On  their  hands  leaned  their  weight, 
And  writhed  them  free  with  mickle  toil, 
Still  folded  in  their  veiny  vans : 
And  all  with  an  unsought  accord 
Sang  together  from  the  sward  ; 
Whence  had  come,  and  from  sprites 
Yet  unseen,  those  delights. 
As  of  tempered  musics  blent. 
Which  had  given  me  such  content. 
For  haply  our  best  instrument, 


30 


i 


SISTER  SONGS 

Pipe  or  cithern,  stopped  or  strung, 
Mimics  but  some  spirit  tongue. 

Their  amiable  voices,  I  bid  them  upraise 
To  Sylvia,  0  Sylvia,  her  sweet,  feat  zvays  ; 
Their  lovesome  labours  laid  away. 
To  linger  out  this  holiday 
In  syllabling  to  Sylvia  ; 
WhiU  all  the  birds  on  branches  lave  their  mouths  with  May, 
To  bear  with  me  this  burthen. 
For  singing  to  Sylvia. 

Neit  I  saw,  wonder-whist. 

How  from  the  atmosphere  a  mist. 

So  it  seemed,  slow  uprist ; 

And,  looking  from  those  elfin  swarms, 

I  was  'ware 

How  the  air 
Was  all  populous  with  forms 
Of  the  Hours,  floating  down. 
Like  Nereids  through  a  watery  town. 
Some,  with  languors  of  waved  arms, 
Fluctuous  oared  their  flexile  way  ; 
Some  were  borne  half  resupine 
On  the  aerial  hyaline, 
Their  fluid  limbs  and  rare  array 
Flickering  on  the  wind,  as  quivers 
Traihng  weed  in  running  rivers ; 
And  others,  in  far  prospect  seen, 
Newly  loosed  on  this  terrene, 
Shot  in  piercing  swiftness  came. 


31 


SISTER  SONGS 

With  hair  a-stream  like  pale  and  goblin  flame. 

As  crystalline  ice  in  water, 

Lay  in  air  each  faint  daughter ; 

Inseparate  (or  but  separate  dim) 

Circumfused  wind  from  wind-hke  vest, 

Wind-like  vest  from  wind-like  limb. 

But  outward  from  each  lucid  breast, 

When  some  passion  left  its  haunt. 

Radiate  surge  of  colour  came, 

Diffusing  blush-wise,  palpitant. 

Dying  all  the  filmy  frame. 

With  some  sweet  tenderness  they  would 
Turn  to  an  amber-clear  and  glossy  gold  ; 
Or  a  fine  sorrow,  lovely  to  behold, 
Would  sweep  them  as  the  sun  and  wind's  joined  flood 

Sweeps  a  greening-sapphire  sea  ; 

Or  they  would  glow  enamouredly 
Illustrious  sanguine,  like  a  grape  of  blood  ; 

Or  with  mantling  poetry 
Curd  to  the  tincture  which  the  opal  hath. 
Like  rainbows  thawing  in  a  moonbeam  bath. 
So  paled  they,  flushed  they,  swam  they,  sang  melodiously, 

Their  chanting,  soon  fading,  let  them,  too,  upraise 
For  homage  unto  Sylvia,  her  sweet,  feat  ways  ; 
Weave  with  suave  float  their  waved  way. 
And  colours  take  of  holiday. 
For  syllabling  to  Sylvia  ; 
And  all  the  birds  on  branches  lave  their  mouths  with  May, 
To  hear  with  me  this  burthen. 
For  singing  to  Sylvia. 


32 


SISTER  SONGS 

Then,  through  those  translucencics, 
As  grew  my  senses  clearer  clear, 
Did  I  see,  and  did  I  hear, 
How  under  an  elm's  canopy 
Wheeled  a  flight  of  Dryades 
Murmuring  measured  melody. 
Gyre  in  gyre  their  treading  was, 
Wheeling  with  an  adverse  flight, 
In  twi-circle  o'er  the  grass, 
These  to  left,  and  those  to  right ; 

All  the  band 
Linked  by  each  other's  hand  ; 
Decked  in  raiment  stained  as 
The  blue-helmed  aconite. 
And  they  advance  with  flutter,  with  grace, 

To  the  dance, 
Moving  on  with  a  dainty  pace. 
As  blossoms  mince  it  on  river  swells. 
Over  their  heads  their  cymbals  shine. 
Round  each  ankle  gleams  a  twine 

Of  twinkhng  bells — 
Tune  twirled  golden  from  their  cells. 
Every  step  was  a  tinkling  sound, 
As  they  glanced  in  their  dancing-ground. 
Clouds  in  cluster  with  such  a  sailing 
Float  o'er  the  light  of  the  wasting  moon, 
As  the  cloud  of  their  gliding  veiling 
Swung  in  the  sway  of  the  dancing-tune. 
There  was  the  clash  of  their  cymbals  clanging, 
Ringing  of  swinging  bells  clinging  their  feet ; 
And  the  clang  on  wing  it  seemed  a-hanging, 


33 


SISTER  SONGS 

Hovering  round  their  dancing  so  fleet. — 
I  stirred,  I  rustled  more  than  meet ; 
Whereat  they  broke  to  the  left  and  right, 
With  eddying  robes  like  aconite 

Blue  of  helm ; 
And  I  beheld  to  the  foot  o'  the  elm. 

They  have  not  tripped  those  dances,  betrayed  to  my  gaze, 
To  glad  the  heart  of  Sylvia,  beholding  of  their  maze  ; 
Through  barky  walls  have  slid  away. 
And  tricked  them  in  their  holiday. 
For  other  than  for  Sylvia  ; 
While  all  the  birds  on  branches  lave  their  mouths  with  May, 
And  bear  with  me  this  burthen. 
For  singing  to  Sylvia. 

Where  its  umbrage  was  enrooted, 

Sat,  white-suited, 
Sat,  green-amiced  and  bare-footed, 
Spring,  amid  her  minstrelsy ; 
There  she  sat  amid  her  ladies. 

Where  the  shade  is 
Sheen  as  Enna  mead  ere  Hades' 

Gloom  fell  'thwart  Persephone. 
Dewy  buds  were  interstrown 
Through  her  tresses  hanging  down, 
And  her  feet 
Were  most  sweet. 
Tinged  like  sea-stars,  rosied  brown. 
A  throng  of  children  like  to  flowers  were  sown 
About  the  grass  beside,  or  clomb  her  knee  : 
I  looked  who  were  that  favoured  company. 


34 


SISTER  SONGS 

And  one  there  stood 
Against  the  beamy  flood 
Of  sinking  day,  which,  pouring  its  abundance, 
Subhmed  the  illuminous  and  volute  redundance 
Of  locks  that,  half  dissolving,  floated  round  her  face  ; 
As  see  I  might 
Far  off  a  lily-cluster  poised  in  sun 
Dispread  its  gracile  curls  of  light. 
I  knew  what  chosen  child  was  there  in  place  ! 
I  knew  there  might  no  brows  be,  save  of  one. 
With  such  Hesperian  fulgencc  compassed. 
Which  in  her  moving  seemed  to  wheel  about  her  head. 

O  Springes  little  children,  more  loud  your  lauds  upraise ^ 
For  this  is  even  Sylvia,  with  her  sweet,  feat  ways  ! 
Your  lovesome  labours  lay  away. 
And  frank  you  out  in  holiday. 
For  syllabling  to  Sylvia  ; 
And  all  you  birds  on  branches,  lave  your  mouths  with  May, 
To  bear  with  me  this  burthen. 
For  singing  to  Sylvia  ! 

Spring,  goddess,  is  it  thou,  desired  long  ? 

And  art  thou  girded  round  with  this  young  train  ? — 

If  ever  I  did  do  thee  ease  in  song. 

Now  of  thy  grace  let  me  one  meed  obtain, 

And  list  thou  to  one  plain. 

Oh,  keep  still  in  thy  train, 
After  the  years  when  others  therefrom  fade, 

This  tiny,  wcll-belovcd  maid  ! 
To  whom  the  gate  of  my  heart's  fortalice, 

35  r>2 


SISTER  SONGS 

With  all  which  in  it  is. 


^j 


And  the  shy  self  who  doth  therein  immew  him 
'Gainst  what  loud  leaguerers  battailously  woo  him, 

I,  bribed  traitor  to  him, 

Set  open  for  one  kiss. 

Then  suffer, Spring,thy  children,that  lauds  they  should  upraise 
To  Sylvia,  this  Sylvia,  her  sweet,  je at  ways  ; 
Their  lovely  labours  lay  away. 
And  trick  them  out  in  holiday. 
For  syllabling  to  Sylvia  ; 
And  that  all  birds  on  branches  lave  their  mouths  with  May, 
To  bear  with  me  this  burthen, 
For  singing  to  Sylvia. 

A  kiss  ?  for  a  child's  kiss  ? 
Aye,  goddess,  even  for  this. 
Once,  bright  Sylviola,  in  days  not  far, 
Once — in  that  nightmare-time  which  still  doth  haunt 
My  dreams,  a  grim,  unbidden  visitant — 

Forlorn,  and  faint,  and  stark, 
I  had  endured  through  watches  of  the  dark 

The  abashless  inquisition  of  each  star, 
Yea,  was  the  outcast  mark 

Of  all  those  heavenly  passers'  scrutiny ; 
Stood  bound  and  helplessly 
For  Time  to  shoot  his  barbed  minutes  at  me ; 
Suffered  the  trampling  hoof  of  every  hour 
In  night's  slow-wheeled  car ; 
Until  the  tardy  dawn  dragged  me  at  length 
From  under  those  dread  wheels ;  and,  bled  of  strength. 


36 


SISTER  SONGS 

I  waited  the  inevitable  last. 

Then  there  came  past 
A  child  ;  Hke  thee,  a  spring-flower  ;  but  a  flower 
Fallen  from  the  budded  coronal  of  Spring, 
And  through  the  city-streets  blown  withering. 
She  passed, — O  brave,  sad,  lovingest,  tender  thing ! 
And  of  her  own  scant  pittance  did  she  give, 

That  I  might  cat  and  live  : 
Then  fled,  a  swift  and  trackless  fugitive. 

Therefore  I  kissed  in  thee 
The  heart  of  Childhood,  so  divine  for  me ; 

And  her,  through  what  sore  ways, 

And  what  unchildish  days, 
Borne  from  me  now,  as  then,  a  trackless  fugitive. 

Therefore  I  kissed  in  thee 

Her,  child  !  and  innocency, 
And  spring,  and  all  things  that  have  gone  from  me, 

And  that  shall  never  be ; 
All  vanished  hopes,  and  all  most  hopeless  bliss, 

Came  with  thee  to  my  kiss. 
And  ah  !  so  long  myself  had  strayed  afar 
From  child,  and  woman,  and  the  boon  earth's  green, 
And  all  wherewith  life's  face  is  fair  bcseen  ; 

Journeying  its  journey  bare 
Five  suns,  except  of  the  all-kissing  sun 
Unkissed  of  one ; 
Almost  I  had  forgot 
The  healing  harms, 
And  whitest  witchery,  a-lurk  in  that 
Authentic  cestus  of  two  girdling  arms  : 

And  I  remembered  not 


37 


SISTER  SONGS 

The  subtle  sanctities  which  dart 
From  childish  lips'  unvalued  precious  brush, 
Nor  how  it  makes  the  sudden  lilies  push 

Between  the  loosening  fibres  of  the  heart. 
Then,  that  thy  little  kiss 
Should  be  to  me  all  this, 
Let  workaday  wisdom  blink  sage  lids  thereat ; 
Which  towers  a  flight  three  hedgerows  high,  poor  bat ! 

And  straightway  charts  me  out  the  empyreal  air. 
Its  chart  I  wing  not  by,  its  canon  of  worth 
Scorn  not,  nor  reck  though  mine  should  breed  it  mirth : 
And  howso  thou  and  I  may  be  disjoint, 
Yet  still  my  falcon  spirit  makes  her  point 

Over  the  covert  where 
Thou,  sweetest  quarry,  hast  put  in  from  her  ! 

{Soul,  hush  these  sad  numbers,  too  sad  to  upraise 
In  hymning  bright  Sylvia,  unlearn' d  in  such  ways  ! 
Our  mourjiful  moods  lay  we  away, 
And  prank  our  thoughts  in  holiday. 
For  syllabling  to  Sylvia  ; 
When  all  the  birds  on  branches  lave  their  mouths  with  May, 
To  hear  with  us  this  burthen, 
For  singing  to  Sylvia  /) 

Then  thus  Spring,  bounteous  lady,  made  reply : 
'  O  lover  of  me  and  all  my  progeny, 

For  grace  to  you 
I  take  her  ever  to  my  retinue. 
Over  thy  form,  dear  child,  alas !  my  art 
Cannot  prevail  j  but  mine  immortalizing 


38 


SISTER  SONGS 

Touch  I  lay  upon  thy  heart. 

Thy  soul's  fair  shape 
In  my  unfading  mantle's  green  I  drape, 
And  thy  white  mind  shall  rest  by  my  devising 

A  Gideon-fleece  amid  life's  dusty  drouth. 
If  Even  burst  yon  globed  yellow  grape 
(Which  is  the  sun  to  mortals'  sealed  sight) 

Against  her  stained  mouth ; 

Or  if  white-handed  Hght 
Draw  thee  yet  dripping  from  the  quiet  pools, 

Still  lucencies  and  cools, 
Of  sleep,  which  all  night  mirror  constellate  dreams ; 
Like  to  the  sign  which  led  the  Israelite, 

Thy  soul,  through  day  or  dark, 
A  visible  brightness  on  the  chosen  ark 

Of  thy  sweet  body  and  pure. 
Shall  it  assure. 
With  auspice  large  and  tutelary  gleams. 
Appointed  solemn  courts,  and  covenanted  streams.* 

Ce/jse,  Springes  little  children,  now  cense  your  lauds  to  raise ; 
That  dream  is  past,  and  Sylvia,  zvith  her  szvcct,  feat  ways. 
Our  lovtd  labour,  laid  away, 
Is  smoothly  ended  ;  said  our  say^ 
Our  syllabling  to  Sylvia. 
Make  sweet,  you  birds  on  branches  !  make  sweet  your  mouths 
with  May  ! 

But  borne  is  this  burthen^ 
Sung  unto  Sylvia. 


39 


SISTER  SONGS 

PART  THE  SECOND 

And  now,  thou  elder  nursling  of  the  nest ; 
Ere  all  the  intertangled  west 
Be  one  magnificence 
Of  multitudinous  blossoms  that  o'errun 
The  flaming  brazen  bowl  o'  the  burnished  sun 

Which  they  do  flower  from, 
How  shall  I  'stablish  thy  memorial  ? 
Nay,  how  or  with  what  countenance  shall  I  come 
To  plead  in  my  defence 
For  loving  thee  at  all  ? 
I  who  can  scarcely  speak  my  fellows'  speech, 
Love  their  love,  or  mine  own  love  to  them  teach ; 
A  bastard  barred  from  their  inheritance. 

Who  seem,  in  this  dim  shape's  uneasy  nook. 
Some  sun-flower's  spirit  which  by  luckless  chance 

Has  mournfully  its  tenement  mistook ; 
When  it  were  better  in  its  right  abode. 
Heartless  and  happy  lackeying  its  god. 
How  com'st  thou,  little  tender  thing  of  white. 
Whose  very  touch  full  scantly  me  beseems. 
How  com'st  thou  resting  on  my  vaporous  dreams. 
Kindling  a  wraith  there  of  earth's  vernal  green  ? 

Even  so  as  I  have  seen. 
In  night's  aerial  sea  with  no  wind  blust'rous, 
A  ribbed  tract  of  cloudy  malachite 

Curve  a  shored  crescent  wide ; 
And  on  its  slope  marge  shelving  to  the  night 
The  stranded  moon  lay  quivering  like  a  lustrous 
Medusa  newly  washed  up  from  the  tide, 
Lay  in  an  oozy  pool  of  its  own  dehquious  light. 


40 


SISTER  SONGS 

Yet  hear  how  my  excuses  may  prevail, 

Nor,  tender  white  orb,  be  thou  opposite ! 
Life  and  life's  beauty  only  hold  their  revels 
In  the  abysmal  ocean's  luminous  levels. 
There,  like  the  phantasms  of  a  poet  pale, 

The  exquisite  marvels  sail : 
Clarified  silver  ;  greens  and  azures  frail 
As  if  the  colours  sighed  themselves  away, 
And  blent  in  supersubtile  interplay 

As  if  they  swooned  into  each  other's  arms ; 

Repurcd  vermilion. 

Like  ear-tips  'gainst  the  sun  ; 
And  beings  that,  under  night's  swart  pinion, 
Make  every  wave  upon  the  harbour-bars 

A  beaten  yolk  of  stars. 
But  where  day's  glance  turns  baffled  from  the  deeps. 

Die  out  those  lovely  swarms ; 
Andin  the  immenseprofound  no  creature  glides  or  creeps. 

Love  and  love's  beauty  only  hold  their  revels 
In  hfe's  familiar,  penetrable  levels : 

What  of  its  ocean-floor  ? 

I  dwell  there  evermore. 

From  almost  earliest  youth 

I  raised  the  lids  o'  the  truth, 
And  forced  her  bend  on  me  her  shrinking  sight ; 
Ever  I  knew  me  Beauty's  eremite. 
In  autre  of  this  lowly  body  set. 

Girt  with  a  thirstv  solitude  of  soul. 

Natheless  I  not  forget 
Mow  I  have,  even  as  the  anchorite, 


41 


SISTER  SONGS 

I  too,  imperishing  essences  that  console. 
Under  my  ruined  passions,  fallen  and  sere, 

The  wild  dreams  stir,  like  little  radiant  girls 
Whom  in  the  moulted  plumage  of  the  year 

Their  comrades  sweet  have  buried  to  the  curls. 
Yet,  though  their  dedicated  amorist, 
How  often  do  I  bid  my  visions  hist. 

Deaf  to  them,  pleading  all  their  piteous  fills ; 
Who  weep,  as  weep  the  maidens  of  the  mist 
Clinging  the  necks  of  the  unheeding  hills : 
And  their  tears  wash  them  lovelier  than  before, 
That  from  grief's  self  our  sad  delight  grows  more. 
Fair  are  the  soul's  uncrisped  calms,  indeed, 
Endiapered  with  many  a  spiritual  form 
Of  blosmy-tindlured  weed ; 
But  scarce  itself  is  conscious  of  the  store 

Suckled  by  it,  and  only  after  storm 
Casts  up  its  loosened  thoughts  upon  the  shore. 
To  this  end  my  deeps  are  stirred  ; 
And  I  deem  well  why  life  unshared 
Was  ordained  me  of  yore. 
In  pairing- time,  we  know,  the  bird 
Kindles  to  its  deepmost  splendour, 
And  the  tender 
Voice  is  tenderest  in  its  throat : 
Were  its  love,  for  ever  nigh  it, 
Never  by  it. 
It  might  keep  a  vernal  note, 
The  crocean  and  amethystine 
In  their  pristine 
Lustre  linger  on  its  coat. 


42 


SISTER  SONGS 

Therefore  must  my  song-bower  lone  be, 
That  my  tone  be 
Fresh  with  dewy  pain  alway  ; 
She,  who  scorns  my  dearest  care  ta'en, 
An  uncertain 
Shadow  of  the  sprite  of  May. 
And  is  my  song  sweet,  as  they  say  ? 
'Tis  sweet  for  one  whose  voice  has  no  reply, 

Save  silence's  sad  cry  : 
And  are  its  plumes  a  burning  bright  array  ? 
They  burn  for  an  unincarnated  eye. 
A  bubble,  charioteered  by  the  inward  breath 
Which,  ardorous  for  its  own  invisible  lure, 
Urges  me  glittering  to  aerial  death, 

I  am  rapt  towards  that  bodiless  paramour ; 
Blindly  the  uncomprehended  tyranny 
Obeying  of  my  heart's  impetuous  might. 
The  earth  and  all  its  planetary  kin, 
Starry  buds  tangled  in  the  whirling  hair 
That  flames  round  the  Phoebean  wassailer, 

Speed  no  more  ignorant,  more  predestined  flight, 
Than  I,  her  viewless  tresses  netted  in. 
As  some  most  beautiful  one,  with  lovely  taunting, 
Her  eyes  of  guileless  guile  o'ercanopies. 

Does  her  hid  visage  bow. 
And  miserly  your  covetous  gaze  allow, 
By  inchmeal,  coy  degrees, 
Saying — *  Can  you  see  me  now  ? ' 
Yet  from  the  mouth's  reflex  you  guess  the  wanting 

Smile  of  the  coming  eyes 
In  aU  their  upturned  grievous  witcheries, 


43 


SISTER  SONGS 


Before  that  sunbreak  rise ; 
And  each  still  hidden  feature  view  within 
Your  mind,  as  eager  scrutinies  detail 
The  moon's  young  rondure  through  the  shamcfast  veil 
Drawn  to  her  gleaming  chin  : 
After  this  wise, 
From  the  enticing  smile  of  earth  and  skies 
I  dream  my  unknown  Fair's  refused  gaze  ; 
And  guessingly  her  love's  close  traits  devise, 

Which  she  with  subtile  coquetries 
Through  little  human  glimpses  slow  displays, 
Cozening  my  mateiess  days 
By  sick,  intolerable  delays. 
And  so  I  keep  mine  uncompanioned  ways ; 
And  so  my  touch,  to  golden  poesies 
Turning  love's  bread,  is  bought  at  hunger's  price. 
So, — in  the  inextinguishable  wars 
Which  roll  song's  Orient  on  the  sullen  night 
Whose  ragged  banners  in  their  own  despite 
Take  on  the  tinges  of  the  hated  light, — 
So  Sultan  Phoebus  has  his  Janizars. 
But  if  mine  unappeased  cicatrices 

Might  get  them  lawful  ease ; 
Were  any  gentle  passion  hallowed  me. 

Who  must  none  other  breath  of  passion  feel 
Save  such  as  winnows  to  the  fledged  heel 
The  tremulous  Paradisal  plumages ; 
The  conscious  sacramental  trees 
Which  ever  be 
Shaken  celestially. 
Consentient  with  enamoured  wings,  might  know  my 
love  for  thee. 

44 


SISTER  SONGS 

Yet  is  there  more,  whereat  none  guesseth,  love  ! 

Upon  the  ending  of  my  deadly  night 
(Whereof  thou  hast  not  the  surmise,  and  slight 
Is  all  that  any  mortal  knows  thereof), 

Thou  wert  to  me  that  earnest  of  day's  light, 
When,  like  the  back  of  a  gold-mailed  saurian 

Heaving  its  slow  length  from  Nilotic  slime, 
The  first  long  gleaming  fissure  runs  Aurorian 
Athwart  the  yet  dun  firmament  of  prime. 
Stretched  on  the  margin  of  the  cruel  sea 
Whence  they  had  rescued  me. 
With  faint  and  painful  pulses  was  I  lying ; 
Not  yet  discerning  well 
If  I  had  'scaped,  or  were  an  icicle, 

\^'hosc  thawing  is  its  dying. 
Like  one  who  sweats  before  a  despot's  gate, 
Summoned  by  some  presaging  scroll  of  fate. 
And  knows  not  whether  kiss  or  dagger  wait ; 
And  all  so  sickened  is  his  countenance. 
The  courtiers  buzz, '  Lo,  doomed  ! '  and  look  at 
him  askance  : — 

At  Fate's  dread  portal  then 
Even  so  stood  I,  I  ken. 
Even  so  stood  I,  between  a  joy  and  fear. 
And  said  to  mine  own  heart,  '  Now  if  the  end 
be  here ! ' 

They  say.  Earth's  beauty  seems  completcst 
To  them  that  on  their  death-beds  rest ; 

Gentle  lady  !  she  smiles  sweetest 
Just  ere  she  clasps  us  to  her  breast. 


45 


SISTER  SONGS 

And  I, — now  my  Earth's  countenance  grev/  bright, 
Did  she  but  smile  me  towards  that  nuptial-night  ? 
But,  whileas  on  such  dubious  bed  I  lay, 
One  unforgotten  day, 
As  a  sick  child  waking  sees 

Wide-eyed  daisies 
Gazing  on  it  from  its  hand. 
Slipped  there  for  its  dear  amazes ; 
So  between  thy  father's  knees 
I  saw  thee  stand, 
And  through  my  hazes 
Of  pain  and  fear  thine  eyes'  young  wonder  shone. 
Then,  as  flies  scatter  from  a  carrion, 

Or  rooks  in  spreading  gyres  like  broken  smoke 
Wheel,  when  some  sound  their  quietude  has  broke, 
Fled,  at  thy  countenance,  all  that  doubting  spawn  : 

The  heart  which  I  had  questioned  spoke, 
A  cry  impetuous  from  its  depth  was  drawn, — 
'  I  take  the  omen  of  this  face  of  dawn  ! ' 
And  with  the  omen  to  my  heart  cam'st  thou. 

Even  with  a  spray  of  tears 
That  one  light  draft  was  fixed  there  for  the  years. 

And  now  ? — 
The  hours  I  tread  ooze  memories  of  thee.  Sweet, 
Beneath  my  casual  feet. 
With  rainfall  as  the  lea. 
The  day  is  drenched  with  thee ; 
In  little  exquisite  surprises 
Bubbling  deliciousness  of  thee  arises 
From  sudden  places. 


46 


SISTER  SONGS 

Under  the  common  traces 
Of  my  most  Icthargied  and  customed  paces. 

As  an  Arab  journeyeth 

Through  a  sand  of  Ayaman, 

Lean  Thirst,  lolhng  its  cracked  tongue, 

Lagging  by  his  side  along  ; 

And  a  rusty-winged  Death 

Grating  its  low  flight  before. 

Casting  ribbed  shadows  o'er 

The  blank  desert,  blank  and  tan  : 
He  hfts  by  hap  toward  where  the  morning's  roots  are 
His  weary  stare, — 
Sees,  although  they  plashless  mutes  are, 

Set  in  a  silver  air 
Fountains  of  gehd  shoots  are, 

Making  the  daylight  fairest  fair ; 
Sees  the  palm  and  tamarind 
Tangle  the  tresses  of  a  phantom  wind  ; — 
A  sight  like  innocence  when  one  has  sinned  ! 
A  green  and  maiden  freshness  smiling  there, 

\\'hile  with  unblinking  glare 
The  tawny-hided  desert  crouches  watching  her. 

'Tis  a  vision : 
Yet  the  greeneries  Elysian 
He  has  known  in  tra(5fs  afar  ; 
Thus  the  enamouring  fountains  flow, 
Those  the  very  palms  that  grow, 
By  rare-gummed  Sava,  or  Herbalimar. — 
Such  a  watered  dream  has  tarried 


47 


SISTER  SONGS 

Trembling  on  my  desert  arid ; 
Even  so 
Its  lovely  gleamings 

Seemings  show 
Of  things  not  seemings ; 
And  I  gaze, 
Knowing  that,  beyond  my  ways. 

Verily 
All  these  are^  for  these  are  She. 

Eve  no  gentlier  lays  her  cooling  cheek 
On  the  burning  brow  of  the  sick  earth. 
Sick  with  death,  and  sick  with  birth, 
Aeon  to  aeon,  in  secular  fever  twirled, 
Than  thy  shadow  soothes  this  weak 
And  distempered  being  of  mine. 
In  all  I  work,  my  hand  includeth  thine ; 
Thou  rushest  down  in  every  stream 
Whose  passion  frets  my  spirit's  deepening  gorge ; 
Unhood'st  mine  eyas-heart,  and  fliest  my  dream ; 

Thou  swing'st  the  hammers  of  my  forge ; 
As  the  innocent  moon,  that  nothing  does  but  shine. 
Moves  all  the  labouring  surges  of  the  world. 

Pierce  where  thou  wilt  the  springing  thought  in  me, 
And  there  thy  piftured  countenance  lies  enfurled. 
As  in  the  cut  fern  lies  the  imaged  tree. 

This  poor  song  that  sings  of  thee, 
This  fragile  song,  is  but  a  curled 

Shell  outgathered  from  thy  sea. 
And  murmurous  still  of  its  nativity. 
Princess  of  Smiles, 


48 


SISTER  SONGS 

Sorceress  of  most  unlawful-lawful  wiles, 
Cunning  pit  for  gazers'  senses, 
Overstrcwn  with  innocences  ! 
Purities  gleam  white  like  statues 
In  the  fair  lakes  of  thine  eyes, 
And  I  watch  the  sparkles  that  use 

There  to  rise, 

Knowing  these 
Are  bubbles  from  the  calyces 
Of  the  lovely  thoughts  that  breathe 
Paving,  like  water-flowers,  thy  spirit's  floor  beneath. 

O  thou  most  dear  ! 
Who  art  thy  sex's  complex  harmony 

God-set  more  facilely  ; 

To  thee  may  love  draw  near 

Without  one  blame  or  fear, 
Unchidden  save  by  his  humility  : 
Thou  Perseus'  Shield  wherein  I  view  secure 
The  mirrored  Wcmian's  fateful-fair  allure  ! 
Whom  Heaven  still  leaves  a  twofold  dignity. 
As  girlhood  gentle,  and  as  boyhood  free  ; 
With  whom  no  most  diaphanous  webs  envvind 
The  bared  limbs  of  the  rebukcless  mind. 
Wild  Dryad,  all  unconscious  of  thy  tree. 

With  which  indissolubly 
The  tyrannous  time  shall  one  day  make  thee  whole  ; 
Whose  frank  arms  pass  unfretted  through  its  bole  ; 

Who  wear'st  thy  femineity 
Light  as  entrailcd  blossoms,  that  shalt  find 
It  erelong  silver  shackles  unto  thee  : 


49 


SISTER  SONGS 

Thou  whose  young  sex  is  yet  but  in  thy  goul ; — 

As  hoarded  in  the  vine 
Hang  the  gold  skins  of  undelirious  wine, 
As  air  sleeps,  till  it  toss  its  limbs  in  breeze ; — 
In  whom  the  mystery  which  lures  and  sunders, 
Grapples  and  thrusts  apart,  endears,  estranges, 
— The  dragon  to  its  own  Hesperides — 

Is  gated  under  slow-revolving  changes. 
Manifold  doors  of  heavy-hinged  years  : — 

So  once,  ere  Heaven's  eyes  were  filled  with  wonders 
To  see  Laughter  rise  from  Tears, 
Lay  in  beauty  not  yet  mighty, 
Couched  in  translucencies. 
The  antenatal  Aphrodite, 
Caved  magically  under  magic  seas ; 
Caved  dreamlessly  beneath  the  dreamful  seas. 

'  Whose  sex  is  in  thy  soul ! ' 
What  think  we  of  thy  soul  ? 
Which  has  no  parts,  and  cannot  grow, 
Unfurled  not  from  an  embryo  ; 
Born  of  full  stature,  lineal  to  control ; 

And  yet  a  pigmy's  yoke  must  undergo  : 
Yet  must  keep  pace  and  tarry,  patient,  kind. 
With  its  unwilHng  scholar,  the  dull,  tardy  mind  ; 
Must  be  obsequious  to  the  body's  powers. 
Whose  low  hands  mete  its  paths,  set  ope  and  close  its 
ways  ; 

Must  do  obeisance  to  the  days. 
And  wait  the  little  pleasure  of  the  hours ; 
Yea,  ripe  for  kingship,  yet  must  be 


50 


SISTER  SONGS 

Captive  in  statutcd  minority  ! 

So  is  all  power  fulfilled,  as  soul  in  thee. 

So  still  the  ruler  by  the  ruled  takes  rule, 

And  wisdom  weaves  itself  i'  the  loom  o'  the  fool. 

The  splendent  sun  no  splendour  can  display 

Till  on  gross  things  he  dash  his  broken  ray, 

From  cloud  and  tree  and  flower  re-tossed  in  prismy 

spray. 
Did  not  obstru6lion's  vessel  hem  it  in. 
Force  were  not  force,  would  spill  itself  in  vain  ; 
We  know  the  Titan  by  his  champed  chain. 
Stay  is  heat's  cradle,  it  is  rocked  therein. 
And  by  check's  hand  is  burnished  into  light ; 
If  hate  were  none,  would  love  burn  lowlier  bright  ? 
God's  Fair  were  guessed  scarce  but  for  opposite  sin ; 
Yea,  and  His  Mercy,  I  do  think  it  well, 
Is  flashed  back  from  the  brazen  gates  of  Hell. 

The  heavens  decree 
All  power  fulfil  itself  as  soul  in  thee. 
For  supreme  Spirit  subjeft  was  to  clay. 

And  Law  from  its  own  servants  learned  a  law, 
And  Light  besought  a  lamp  unto  its  way, 

And  Awe  was  reined  in  awe, 
At  one  small  house  of  Nazareth  ; 
And  Golgotha 
Saw  Breath  to  breathlcssness  resign  its  breath, 
And  Life  do  homage  for  its  crown  to  death. 

So  is  all  power,  as  soul  in  thee,  increased  ! 
But,  knowing  this,  in  knowledge's  despite 
I  fret  against  the  law  severe  that  stains 

51  £2 


SISTER  SONGS 

Thy  spirit  with  eclipse  ; 
When — as  a  nymph's  carven  head  sweet  water  drips, 
For  others  oozing  so  the  cool  delight 
Which  cannot  steep  her  stiffened  mouth  of  stone — 
Thy  nescient  lips  repeat  maternal  strains. 

Memnonian  lips  ! 
Smitten  with  singing  from  thy  mother's  East, 
And  murmurous  with  music  not  their  own  : 
Nay,  the  lips  flexile,  while  the  mind  alone 
A  passionless  statue  stands. 
Oh,  pardon,  innocent  one  ! 
Pardon  at  thine  unconscious  hands  ! 
Murmurous  with  music  not  their  own,'  I  say  ? 
And  in  that  saying  how  do  I  missay. 

When  from  the  common  sands 
Of  poorest  common  speech  of  common  day 
Thine  accents  sift  the  golden  musics  out ! 
And  ah,  we  poets,  I  misdoubt, 
Are  little  more  than  thou  ! 
We  speak  a  lesson  taught  we  know  not  how. 

And  what  it  is  that  from  us  flows 
The  hearer  better  than  the  utterer  knows. 

Thou  canst  foreshape  thy  word  ; 

The  poet  is  not  lord 
Of  the  next  syllable  may  come 
With  the  returning  pendulum  ; 
And  what  he  plans  to-day  in  song, 
To-morrow  sino-s  it  in  another  tongue. 

Where  the  last  leaf  fell  from  his  bough, 
He  knows  not  if  a  leaf  shall  grow  ; 


52 


SISTER  SONGS 

Where  he  sows  he  doth  not  reap, 
He  reapcth  where  he  did  not  sow  ; 
He  sleeps,  and  dreams  forsake  his  sleep 
To  meet  him  on  his  waking  way. 
Vision  will  mate  him  not  by  law  and  vow  : 
Disguised  in  Ufe's  most  hodden-grey, 
By  the  most  beaten  road  of  everyday 
She  waits  him,  unsuspe6led  and  unknown. 

The  hardest  pang  whereon 
He  lays  his  mutinous  head  may  be  a  Jacob's  stone. 
In  the  most  iron  crag  his  foot  can  tread 
A  Dream  may  strew  her  bed. 
And  suddenly  his  limbs  entwine, 
And  draw  him  down  through  rock  as  sea-nymphs  might 

through  brine. 
But,  unhke  those  feigned  temptress-ladies  who 
In  guerdon  of  a  niglit  the  lover  slew, 
When  the  embrace  has  failed,  the  rapture  fled, 
Not  he,  not  he,  the  wild  sweet  witch  is  dead  ! 

And  though  he  cherisheth 
The  babe  most  strangely  born  from  out  her  death, 
Some  tender  trick  of  her  it  hath,  maybe, — 
It  is  not  she  ! 

Yet,  even  as  the  air  is  rumorous  of  fray 

Before  the  first  shafts  of  the  sun's  onslaught 
From  gloom's  black  harness  splinter. 
And  Summer  move  on  Winter 
With  the  trumpet  of  the  March,  and  tlie  pennon  of  the 
May; 
As  gesture  outstrips  thought ; 


53 


SISTER  SONGS 

So  haply,  toyer  with  ethereal  strings, 

Are  thy  blind  repetitions  of  high  things 

The  murmurous  gnats  whose  aimless  hoverings 

Reveal  song's  summer  in  the  air ; 
The  outstretched  hand,  which  cannot  thought  declare, 

Yet  is  thought's  harbinger. 
These  strains  the  way  for  thine  own  strains  prepare ; 
We  feel  the  music  moist  upon  this  breeze, 
And  hope  the  congregating  poesies. 

Sundered  yet  by  thee  from  us 

Wait,  with  wild  eyes  luminous, 
All  thy  winged  things  that  are  to  be  ; 
They  flit  against  thee.  Gate  of  Ivory  ! 
They  clamour  on  the  portress  Destiny, — 
'  Set  her  wide,  so  we  may  issue  through. 
Our  vans  are  quick  for  that  they  have  to  do  ! ' 

Suffer  still  your  young  desire  ; 
Your  plumes  but  bicker  at  the  tips  with  fire ; 
Tarry  their  kindling — they  will  beat  the  higher. 
And  thou,  bright  girl,  not  long  shalt  thou  repeat 
Idly  the  music  from  thy  mother  caught ; 

Not  vainly  has  she  wrought. 
Not  vainly  from  the  cloudward-jetting  turret 
Of  her  aerial  mind  for  thy  weak  feet 
Let  down  the  silken  ladder  of  her  thought. 
She  bare  thee  with  a  double  pain, 

Of  the  body  and  the  spirit  ; 
Thou  thy  fleshly  weeds  hast  ta'en. 

Thy  diviner  weeds  inherit ! 
The  precious  streams  which  through  thy  young  lips  roll 
Shall  leave  their  lovely  delta  in  thy  soul : 


54 


SISTER  SONGS 

Where  sprites  of  so  essential  kind 

Set  their  paces, 
Surely  they  shall  leave  behind 

The  green  traces 
Of  their  sportance  in  the  mind  ; 
And  thou  shalt,  ere  we  well  may  know  it, 
Turn  that  daintiness,  a  poet, — 

Elfin -ring 
Where  sweet  fancies  foot  and  sing. 
So  it  may  be,  so  it  shall  be, — 
Oh,  take  the  prophecy  from  me  ! 
What  if  the  old  fastidious  sculptor.  Time, 
This  crescent  marvel  of  his  hands 
Carveth  all  too  painfully. 
And  I  who  prophesy  shall  never  see  ? 
What  if  the  niche  of  its  predestined  rhyme. 
Its  aching  niche,  too  long  expcdant  stands  f 
Yet  shall  he  after  sore  delays 
On  some  exultant  day  of  days 
The  white  enshrouding  childhood  raise 
From  thy  fair  spirit,  finished  for  our  gaze  ; 
While  we  (but  'mongst  that  happy  '  we' 
The  prophet  cannot  be  !) — 
While  we  behold  with  no  astonishments. 
With  that  serene  fulfilment  of  delight 
Wherewith  we  view  the  sight 
When  the  stars  pitch  the  golden  tents 
Of  their  high  campment  on  the  plains  of  night. 
\\  hy  should  amazement  be  our  satellite  ? 

What  wonder  in  such  things  ? 
If  angels  have  hereditary  wings, 


55 


SISTER  SONGS 

If  not  by  Salic  law  is  handed  down 

The  poet's  crown, 
To  thee,  born  in  the  purple  of  the  throne, 
The  laurel  must  belong : 
Thou,  in  thy  mother's  right 
Descendant  of  Castalian-chrismed  kings — 

0  Prince&s  of  the  Blood  of  Song ! 

Peace !  Too  impetuously  have  I  been  winging 

Toward  vaporous  heights  which  beckon  and  beguile. 

1  sink  back,  saddened  to  my  inmost  mind ; 
Even  as  I  list  a-dream  that  mother  singing 

The  poesy  of  sweet  tone,  and  sadden  while 
Her  voice  is  cast  in  troubled  wake  behind 
The  keel  of  her  keen  spirit.  Thou  art  enshrined 
In  a  too  primal  innocence  for  this  eye — 
Intent  on  such  untempered  radiancy — 
Not  to  be  pained  ;  my  clay  can  scarce  endure 
Ungrieved  the  effiuence  near  of  essences  so  pure. 
Therefore,  little  tender  maiden, 
Never  be  thou  overshaden 
With  a  mind  whose  canopy 
Would  shut  out  the  sky  from  thee ; 
Whose  tangled  branches  intercept  Heaven's  light : 
I  will  not  feed  my  unpastured  heart 
On  thee,  green  pleasaunce  as  thou  art, 
To  lessen  by  one  flower  thy  happy  daisies  white. 
The  water-rat  is  earth-hued  like  the  runlet 

Whereon  he  swims ;  and  how  in  me  should  lurk 
Thoughts  apt  to  neighbour  thine,  thou  creature  sunlit  ? 
If  through  long  fret  and  irk 


56 


SISTER  SONGS 

Thine  eves  within  their  browed  recesses  were 

\\  orn  caves  where  thought  lay  couchant  in  its  lair  ; 

\\  ert  thou  a  spark  among  dank  leaves,  ah  ruth  ! 

W  ith  age  in  all  thy  veins,  while  all  thy  heart  was  youth 

Our  conta6l  might  run  smooth. 
But  life's  Eoan  dews  still  moist  thy  ringed  hair ; 

Dian's  chill  finger-tips 
Thaw  if  at  night  they  happen  on  thy  lips ; 
The  flying  fringes  of  the  sun's  cloak  frush 
The  fragile  leaves  w  hich  on  those  warm  lips  blush ; 

And  joy  only  lurks  retired 

In  the  dim  gloaming  of  thine  irid. 
Then  since  my  love  drags  this  poor  shadow,  me, 
And  one  without  the  other  may  not  be. 
From  both  I  guard  thee  free. 

It  still  is  much,  yes,  it  is  much. 
Only — my  dream  ! — to  love  my  love  of  thee ; 

And  it  is  much,  yes,  it  is  much, 
In  hands  which  thou  hast  touched  to  feel  thy  touch, 
In  voices  which  have  mingled  with  thine  own 

To  hear  a  double  tone. 
As  anguish,  for  supreme  expression  prest, 

Borrows  its  saddest  tongue  from  jest, 

Thou  hast  of  absence  so  create 

A  presence  more  importunate  ; 

And  thy  voice  pleads  its  sweetest  suit 
When  it  is  mute. 

I  thank  the  once  accursed  star 
W  hich  did  me  teach 
To  make  of  Silence  my  familiar, 
Who  hath  the  rich  reversion  of  thy  speech, 


57 


SISTER  SONGS 

Since  the  most  charming  sounds  thy  thought  can  wear, 
Cast  off,  fall  to  that  pale  attendant's  share  ; 

And  thank  the  gift  which  made  my  mind 
A  shadow-world,  wherethrough  the  shadows  wind 
Of  all  the  loved  and  lovely  of  my  kind. 

Like  a  maiden  Saxon,  folden, 

As  she  flits,  in  moon-drenched  mist ; 
Whose  curls  streaming  flaxen-golden, 

By  the  misted  moonbeams  kist, 
Dispread  their  filmy  floating  silk 

Like  honey  steeped  in  milk : 
So,  vague  goldenness  remote, 
Through  my  thoughts  I  watch  thee  float. 
When  the  snake  summer  casts  her  blazoned  skin 
We  find  it  at  the  turn  of  autumn's  path. 
And  think  it  summer  that  rewinded  hath, 

Joying  therein  ; 
And  this  enamouring  slough  of  thee,  mine  elf, 

I  take  it  for  thyself ; 
Content.  Content  ?  Yea,  title  it  content. 
The  very  loves  that  belt  thee  must  prevent 
My  love,  I  know,  with  their  legitimacy : 
As  the  metallic  vapours,  that  are  swept 
Athwart  the  sun,  in  his  light  intercept 

The  very  hues 
Which  their  conflagrant  elements  effuse. 
But,  my  love,  my  heart,  my  fair, 
That  only  I  should  see  thee  rare, 
Or  tent  to  the  hid  core  thy  rarity, — 

This  were  a  mournfulness  more  piercing  far 


58 


SISTER  SONGS 

Than  that  those  other  loves  my  own  must  bar, 
Or  thine  for  others  leave  thee  none  for  mc. 

But  on  a  day  whereof  I  think, 
One  shall  dip  his  hand  to  drink 
In  that  still  water  of  thy  soul, 
And  its  imaged  tremors  race 
Over  thy  joy-troubled  face, 
As  the  intervolved  reflexions  roll 
From  a  shaken  fountain's  brink, 
With  swift  light  wrinkling  its  alcove. 
From  the  hovering  wing  of  Love 
The  warm  stain  shall  flit  roseal  on  thy  cheek. 

Then,  sweet  blushet !  whenas  he, 
The  destined  paramount  of  thy  universe. 

Who  has  no  worlds  to  sigh  for,  ruling  thee. 
Ascends  his  vermeil  throne  of  empery. 
One  grace  alone  I  seek. 
Oh  !  may  this  treasure-galleon  of  my  verse, 
Fraught  with  its  golden  passion,  oared  with  cadent 

rhyme. 
Set  with  a  towering  press  of  fantasies, 
Drop  safely  down  the  time, 
Leaving  mine  isled  self  behind  it  far 
Soon  to  be  sunken  in  the  abysm  of  seas 
(As  down  the  years  the  splendour  voyages 

From  some  long  ruined  and  night-submerged  star). 
And  in  thy  subjcd  sovereign's  havening  heart 
Anchor  the  freightage  of  its  virgin  ore  ; 

Adding  its  wasteful  more 
To  his  own  overflowing  treasury. 


59 


SISTER  SONGS 

So  through  his  river  mine  shall  reach  thy  sea, 

Bearing  its  confluent  part ; 

In  his  pulse  mine  shall  thrill ; 
And  the  quick  heart  shall  quicken  from  the  heart  that's 
still. 

Ah,  help,  my  Dzemon  that  hast  served  me  well ! 
Not  at  this  last,  oh,  do  not  me  disgrace ! 
I  faint,  I  sicken,  darkens  all  my  sight, 
As,  poised  upon  this  unprevisioned  height, 
I  lift  into  its  place 
The  utmost  aery  traceried  pinnacle. 
So ;  it  is  builded,  the  high  tenement, 

— God  grant ! — to  mine  intent : 
Most  hke  a  palace  of  the  Occident, 

Up-thrusting,  toppling  maze  on  maze, 
Its  mounded  blaze, 
And  washed  by  the  sunset's  rosy  waves. 
Whose  sea  drinks  rarer  hue  from  those  rare  walls  it 
laves. 

Yet  wail,  my  spirits,  wail ! 
So  few  therein  to  enter  shall  prevail. 
Scarce  fewer  could  win  way,  if  their  desire 
A  dragon  baulked,  with  involuted  spire. 
And  writhen  snout  spattered  with  yeasty  fire. 
For  at  the  elfin  portal  hangs  a  horn 

Which  none  can  wind  aright 
Save  the  appointed  knight 
Whose  lids  the  fay-wings  brushed  when  he  was  born. 

All  others  stray  forlorn. 
Or  glimpsing,  through  the  blazoned  windows  scrolled, 


60 


SISTER  SONGS 

Receding  labyrinths  lessening  tortuously 

In  half  obscurity ; 
With  mystic  images,  inhuman,  cold, 
That  flamelcss  torches  hold. 
But  who  can  wind  that  horn  of  might 
(The  horn  of  dead  Heliades)  aright, — 

Straight 
Open  for  him  shall  roll  the  conscious  gate  ; 
And  hght  leap  up  from  all  the  torches  there, 
And  life  leap  up  in  every  torchbearcr, 
And  the  stone  faces  kindle  in  the  glow, 
And  into  the  blank  eyes  the  irids  grow. 
And  through  the  dawning  irids  ambushed  meanings 
show. 

Illumined  this  wise  on, 
He  threads  securely  the  far  intricacies. 

With  brede  from  Heaven's  wrought  vesture 
overstrewn  ; 
Swift  Tellus'  purflcd  tunic,  girt  upon 
With  the  blown  chlamys  of  her  fluttering  seas  ; 

And  the  freaked  kirtle  of  the  pearled  moon  : 
Until  ho  gain  the  structure's  core,  where  stands — 

A  toil  of  ma"ic  hands — 
The  unbodied  spirit  of  the  sorcerer, 
Most  strangely  rare. 
As  is  a  vision  remembered  in  the  noon  ; 
Unbodied,  yet  to  mortal  seeing  clear, 
Like  sighs  exhaled  in  eager  atmosphere. 
From  human  haps  and  mutabilities 
It  rests  exempt,  beneath  the  edifice 
To  which  itself  gave  rise  ; 


6i 


SISTER  SONGS 

Sustaining  centre  to  the  bubble  of  stone 
Which,  breathed  from  it,  exists  by  it  alone. 
Yea,  ere  Saturnian  earth  her  child  consumes, 
And  I  lie  down  with  outworn  ossuaries. 
Ere  death's  grim  tongue  anticipates  the  tomb's 
Siste  viator,  in  this  storied  urn 
My  living  heart  is  laid  to  throb  and  burn, 
Till  end  be  ended,  and  till  ceasing  cease. 

And  thou  by  whom  this  strain  hath  parentage ; 

Wantoner  between  the  yet  untreacherous  claws 
Of  newly-whelped  existence  !  ere  he  pause, 
What  gift  to  thee  can  yield  the  archimage  ? 
For  coming  seasons'  frets 
What  aids,  what  amulets, 
What  softenings,  or  what  brightenings  ? 
As  Thunder  writhes  the  lash  of  his  long  lightnings 
About  the  growling  heads  of  the  brute  main 
Foaming  at  mouth,  until  it  wallow  again 
In  the  scooped  oozes  of  its  bed  of  pain ; 
So  all  the  gnashing  jaws,  the  leaping  heads 
Of  hungry  menaces,  and  of  ravening  dreads, 

Of  pangs 
Twitch-lipped,  with  quivering  nostrils  and  immitigate 

fangs, 
I  scourge  beneath  the  torment  of  my  charms 
That  their  repentless  nature  fear  to  work  thee  harms. 
And  as  yon  Apollonian  harp-player. 

Yon  wandering  psalterist  of  the  sky. 
With  flickering  strings  which  scatter  melody, 
The  silver-stoled  damsels  of  the  sea, 


61 


SISTER  SONGS 

Or  lake,  or  fount,  or  stream, 
Enchants  from  their  ancestral  heaven  of  waters 
To  Naiad  it  through  the  unfrothing  air ; 

IVIy  song  enchants  so  out  of  undulous  dream 
The   glimmering  shapes   of  its   dim-tressed 
daughters, 
And  missions  each  to  be  thy  minister, 

Saying  :  *  O  ye, 
The  organ-stops  of  being's  harmony ; 
The  blushes  on  existence's  pale  face, 

Lending  it  sudden  grace  ; 
Without  whom  wc  should  but  guess  Heaven's  worth 
By  blank  negations  of  this  sordid  earth 
(So  haply  to  the  blind  may  light 
Be  but  gloom's  undetermined  opposite)  ; 
Ye  who  are  thus  as  the  rcfrafting  air 
Whereby  we  see  Heaven's  stin  before  it  rise 
Above  the  dull  line  of  our  mortal  skies  ; 
As  breathing  on  the  strained  ear  that  sighs 
From  comrades  viewless  unto  strained  eyes, 
Soothing  our  terrors  in  the  lamplcss  night ; 
Ye  who  can  make  this  world,  where  all  is  deeming, 
What  world  ye  list,  being  arbiters  of  seeming  ; 
Attend  upon  her  ways,  benignant  powers  ! 
Unroll  ye  life  a  carpet  for  her  feet, 
And  cast  ye  down  before  them  blossomy  hours, 
Until  her  going  shall  be  clogged  with  sweet ! 
All  dear  emotions  whose  new-bathed  hair. 
Still  streaming  from  the  soul,  in  love's  warm  air 
Smokes  with  a  mist  of  tender  fantasies ; 
All  these, 


63 


SISTER  SONGS 

And  all  the  heart's  wild  growths  which,  swiftly  bright, 
Spring  up  the  crimson  agarics  of  a  night, 
No  pain  in  withering,  yet  a  joy  arisen ; 
And  all  thin  shapes  more  exquisitely  rare, 

More  subtly  fair, 
Than  these  weak  ministering  words  have  spell  to  prison 
Within  the  magic  circle  of  this  rhyme  ; 
And  all  the  fays  who  in  our  creedless  clime 

Have  sadly  ceased, 
Bearing  to  other  children  childhood's  proper  feast ; 
Whose  robes  are  fluent  crystal,  crocus-hued, 
Whose  wings  are  wind  a-fire,  whose  mantles 

wrought 
From  spray  that  falling  rainbows  shake  to  air ; 
These,  ye  familiars  to  my  wdzard  thought, 
Make  things  of  journal  custom  unto  her ; 

With  lucent  feet  imbrued, 
If  young  Day  tread,  a  glorious  vintager, 
The  wine-press  of  the  purple-foamed  east ; 
Or  round  the  nodding  sun,  flush-faced  and  sunken, 

His  wild  Bacchantes  drunken 
Reel,  with  rent  woofs  a-flaunt,  their  westering  rout.' 

— But  lo  !  at  length  the  day  is  lingered  out, 
At  length  my  xA-riel  lays  his  viol  by  ; 
We  sing  no  more  to  thee,  child,  he  and  I ; 
The  day  is  lingered  out : 

In  slow  wreaths  folden  f 

Around  yon  censer,  sphered,  golden. 
Vague  Vesper's  fumes  aspire ; 
And,  glimmering  to  eclipse. 


64 


SISTER  SONGS 

The  long  laburnum  drips 
Its  honey  of  wild  flame,  its  jocund  spilth  of  fire. 

Now  pass  your  ways,  fair  bird,  and  pass  your  ways, 
If  you  will ; 
I  have  you  through  the  days  ! 
And  flit  or  hold  you  still. 
And  perch  you  where  you  list 
On  what  wrist, — 
Tou  are  mine  through  the  times  ! 
I  have  caught  you  fast  for  ever  in  a  tangle  of  sweet  rhymes. 
And  in  your  young  maiden  morn 
Tou  may  scorn. 
But  you  must  be 
Bound  and  sociate  to  me  ; 
With  this  thread  from  out  the  tomb  my  dead  hand  shall 
tether  thee  ! 


Go,  Sister-songs,  to  that  sweet  Sister-pair 
For  whom  I  have  your  frail  limbs  fashioned, 

And  framed  feateously  ; — 
For  whom  I  have  your  frail  limbs  fashioned 
With  how  great  shamefastncss  and  how  great  dread, 
Knowing  you  frail,  but  not  if  you  be  fair, 

Though  framed  feateously ; 

Go  unto  them  from  me. 
Go  from  my  shadow  to  their  sunshine  sight, 

Made  for  all  sights'  delight ; 
Go  like  twin  swans  that  oar  the  surgy  storms 
To  bate  with  pcnnoncd  snows  in  candent  air  : 


65 


§ISTEk  SONGS 

Nigh  with  abased  head, 
Yourselves  linked  sisterly,  that  Sister-pair, 

And  go  in  presence  there ; 
Saying — '  Your  young  eyes  cannot  see  our  forms, 
Nor  read  the  yearning  of  our  looks  aright ; 
But  Time  shall  trail  the  veilings  from  our  hair, 
And  cleanse  your  seeing  with  his  euphrasy 
(Yea,  even  your  bright  seeing  make  more  bright, 

Which  is  all  sights'  delight), 
And  ye  shall  know  us  for  what  things  we  be. 

*  Whilom,  within  a  poet's  calyxed  heart, 
A  dewy  love  we  trembled  all  apart ; 

Whence  it  took  rise 

Beneath  your  radiant  eyes, 
Which  misted  it  to  music.  We  must  long, 
A  floating  haze  of  silver  subtile  song, 

Await  love-laden 

Above  each  maiden 
The  appointed  hour  that  o'er  the  hearts  of  you — 

As  vapours  into  dew 

Unweave,  whence  they  were  wove, — 
Shall  turn  our  loosening  musics  back  to  love.' 


66 


SISTER  SONGS 

iNSCRirrioN 

WHEN  thelast  stir  of  bubbling  melodies 
Broke,  as  my  chants  sank  underneath  the  wave 
Of  dulcitude,  but  sank  again  to  rise 
Where  man's  embaying  mind  those  waters  lave 
(For  music  hath  its  Oceanides 
Fleiuously  floating  through  their  parent  seas. 

And  such  arc  these), 
I  saw  a  vision — or  may  it  be 
The  effluence  of  a  dear  desired  reality  ? 

I  saw  two  spirits  high, — 
Two  spirits,  dim  within  the  silver  smoke 

Which  is  for  ever  woke 
By  snowing  lights  of  fountaincd  Poesy. 
Two  shapes  they  were,  familiar  as  love  ; 

They  w  ere  those  souls,  whereof 
One  twines  from  finest  gracious  daily  things, 
Strong,  constant,  noticclcss,  as  are  heart-strings, 
The  golden  cage  wherein  this  song-bird  sings ; 
And  the  other's  sun  gives  hue  to  all  my  flowers, 
\\'hich  else  pale  flowers  of  Tartarus  would  grow, 
Where  ghosts  w  atch  ghosts  of  blooms  in  ghostly  bowers  ; — 

For  we  do  know 
The  hidden  player  by  his  harmonies, 
And  by  my  thoughts  I  know  what  still  hands  thrill  the  keys. 

And  to  these  twain — as  from  the  mind's  abysses 

All  thoughts  draw  toward  the  awakening  heart's  sweet 

kisses, 
With  proffer  of  their  wreathen  fantasies, — 
Even  so  to  these 

67  FS 


SISTER  SONGS 

I  saw  how  many  brought  their  garlands  fair, 
Whether  of  song,  or  simple  love,  they  were, — 
Of  simple  love,  that  makes  best  garlands  fair. 
But  one  I  marked  who  lingered  still  behind, 
As  for  such  souls  no  seemly  gift  had  he : 

He  was  not  of  their  strain. 
Nor  worthy  of  so  bright  beings  to  entertain. 
Nor  fit  compeer  for  such  high  company. 
Yet  was  he,  surely,  born  to  them  in  mind, 
Their  youngest  nursling  of  the  spirit's  kind. 

Last  stole  this  one. 
With  timid  glance,  of  watching  eyes  adread. 
And  dropped  his  frightened  flower  when  all  were  gone  ; 
And  where  the  frail  flower  fell,  it  withered. 
But  yet  methought  those  high  souls  smiled  thereon ; 
As  when  a  child,  upstraining  at  your  knees 
Some  fond  and  fancied  nothings,  says,  *  I  give  yon 
these ! ' 


68 


1 


LOVS  IN  DUN'S  LA^P 


! 


PROEMION  i 

HEAR,  my  Muses,  I  demand 
J  little  labour  at  your  hand. 
Ere  quite  is  loosed  our  amity  : 
A  little  husband  out  the  sand 
That  times  the  gasps  of  Poesy  / 

0  beloved,  O  ye  Two, 

When  the  Years  last  met,  to  you 

I  sent  a  gift  exultingly. 
My  song's  sands,  like  the  Year's,  are  few ; 

But  take  this  last  weak  gift  from  me. 

One  year  ago  (one  year,  one  year  !) 

1  had  no  prescience,  no,  nor  fear  ; 

I  said  to  Oblivion  :  *  Dread  thou  me  ! ' 
What  cared  I  for  the  mortal  year  f 
I  was  not  of  its  company. 

Before  mine  own  Eled  stood  I, 

And  said  to  Death  :*  Not  these  shall  die  ! ' 

I  issued  mandate  royally. 
I  bade  Decay  : '  Avoid  and  fly. 

For  I  am  fatal  unto  thee,' 


7* 


LOVE  IN  DIAN'S  LAP 

I  sprinkled  a  few  drops  of  verse. 
And  said  to  Ruin  :  '  Quit  thy  hearse  ;  ' 

To  my  Loved  : '  Pale  not,  come  with  me  ; 
I  will  escort  thee  down  the  years, 

With  me  thou  walk'st  immortally.' 


-> 


Rhyme  did  I  as  a  charmed  cup  give, 
That  who  I  would  might  drink  and  live. 

*  Enter,'  I  cried, '  Song's  ark  with  me  ! ' 
And  knew  not  that  a  witch's  sieve 

Were  built  somewhat  more  seamanly. 

I  said  unto  my  heart :  *  Be  light ! 
Thy  grain  will  soon  for  long  delight 

Oppress  the  future's  granary  :  ' 
Poor  fool !  and  did  not  hear — '  This  night 

They  shall  demand  thy  song  of  thee.' 

Of  God  and  you  I  pardon  crave  ; 
Who  would  save  others,  nor  can  save 

My  own  self  from  mortality  : 
I  throw  my  whole  songs  in  the  grave — 

They  will  not  fill  that  pit  for  me. 

But  thou,  to  whom  I  sing  this  last — 
The  bitterest  bitterness  I  taste 

Is  that  thy  children  have  from  me 
The  best  I  had  where  all  is  waste. 

And  but  the  crumbs  were  cast  to  thee. 


72 


PROEMION 

It  may  be  I  did  little  wronc^ ; 
Since  no  notes  of  thy  lyre  bclonj:^ 

To  them  ;  thou  leftest  them  for  me  ; 
And  what  didst  thou  want  of  my  song, — 

Thou,  thine  own  immortality  ? 

Ah,  I  would  that  I  had  yet 
Given  thy  head  one  coronet 

With  thine  ivies  to  agree  ! 
Ere  thou  restest  where  are  set 

Wreaths  but  on  the  breast  of  thee. 

Though  what  avails  ? — The  ivies  twined 
By  thine  own  hand  thou  must  unbind, 

When  there  thy  temples  laid  shall  be : 
'Tis  haply  Death's  prevision  kind 

That  ungirt  brows  lie  easily. 

*  Of  all  thy  trees  thou  lovest  so. 
None  tvith  thee  to  grave  shall  go. 

Save  the  abhorred  cypress  tree.^* 
The  abhorred  ? — Ah,  I  know,  I  know, 
Thy  dearest  follower  it  would  be  ! 

Thou  would'st  sweetly  he  in  death 
The  dark  southerner  beneath  : 

We  should  interpret,  knowing  thee, — 

*  Here  I  rest '  (her  symbol  saith), 

'  And  above  me,  Italy.' 

•  The  wordi  of  Horace^ 


73 


LOVE  IN  DIAN'S  LAP 

But  above  thy  English  grave 
Who  knows  if  a  tree  shall  wave  ? 

Save — when  the  far  certainty 
Of  thy  fame  fulfilled  is — save 

The  laurel  that  shall  spring  from  thee. 

Very  little  carest  thou 

If  the  world  no  laurel-bough 

Set  in  thy  dead  hand,  ah  me ! 
But  my  heart  to  grieve  allow 

For  the  fame  thou  shalt  not  see ! 

Yet  my  heart  to  grieve  allow, 
With  the  grief  that  grieves  it  now, 

Looking  to  futurity. 
With  too  sure  presaging  how 

Fools  will  blind  blind  eyes  from  thee : — 

Bitterly  presaging  how 
Sightless  death  must  them  endow 

With  sight,  who  gladder  blind  would  be. 
*  Though  our  eyes  be  blind  enow, 

Let  us  hide  them,  lest  we  see ! ' 

I  would  their  hearts  but  hardened  were 
In  the  way  that  I  aver 

All  men  shall  find  this  heart  of  me  : 
Which  is  so  hard,  thy  name  cut  there 

Never  worn  or  blurred  can  be. 


74 


b 


PROEMION 

If  my  song  as  much  might  say  ! 
But  in  all  too  late  a  day 

I  use  thy  name  for  melody  ; 
And  with  the  sweet  theme  assay 

To  hide  my  descant's  poverty. 

When  that  last  song  gave  I  you, 
Ye  and  I,  beloved  Two, 

\\'ere  each  to  each  half  mystery ! 
Now  the  tender  veil  is  through  ; 

Unafraid  the  whole  we  see. 

Small  for  you  the  danger  was ! 
Statucd  deity  but  thaws 

In  you  to  warm  divinity  ; 
Some  fair  defect  completion  flaws 

With  a  completing  grace  to  me. 

But  when  I  my  veiling  raised — 
The  Milonian  less  were  crazed 

To  talk  with  men  incarnately  : 
The  poor  goddess  but  appraised 

By  her  lacking  arms  would  be. 

Though  Pan  may  have  delicious  throat, 
'Tis  hard  to  tolerate  the  goat. 

What  if  Pan  were  suddenly 
To  lore  his  sinking,  every  note  ? — 

Then  pity  have  of  i'an,  and  me  ! 


75 


LOVE  IN  DIAN'S  LAP 

Love  and  Song  together  sing  ; 
Song  is  weak  and  fain  to  cling 

About  Love's  shoulder  wearily. 
Let  her  voice,  poor  fainting  thing, 

In  his  strong  voice  drowned  be  ! 

In  my  soul's  Temple  seems  a  sound 
Of  unfolding  wings  around 

The  vacant  shrine  of  poesy  : 
Voices  of  parting  songs  resound  : — 

'  Let  us  go  hence  ! '  A  space  let  be  ! 

A  space,  my  Muses, — 1  demand 
This  last  of  labours  at  your  handy 

Ere  quite  is  loosed  our  amity  : 
A  little  stay  the  cruel  sand 

That  times  the  gasps  of  Poesy  / 


76 


1 


BEFORE  HER  PORTRAIT  IN 
YOUTH 

As  lovers,  banished  from  their  lady's  face, 
And  hopeless  of  her  grace, 
.  Fasliion  a  ghostly  sweetness  in  its  place, 
Fondly  adore 
Some  stealth-won  cast  attire  she  wore, 
A  kerchief,  or  a  glove  : 
And  at  the  lover's  beck 
Into  the  glove  there  fleets  the  hand. 
Or  at  impetuous  command 
Up  from  the  kerchief  floats  the  virgin  neck  : 
So  I,  in  very  lowlihead  of  love, — 
Too  shyly  reverencing 
To  let  one  thought's  light  footfall  smooth 
Tread  near  the  living,  consecrated  thing, — 

Treasure  me  thy  cast  youth. 
This  outworn  vesture,  tenantless  of  thee, 
Hath  yet  my  knee, 
For  that,  with  show  and  semblance  fair 
Of  the  past  Her 
Who  once  the  beautiful,  discarded  raiment  bare, 
It  cheatcth  me. 
As  gale  to  gale  drifts  breath 
Of  blossoms'  death, 
So,  dropping  down  the  years  from  hour  to  hour, 

This  dead  youth's  scent  is  wafted  me  to-day  ; 
I  sit,  and  from  the  fragrance  dream  the  flower. 


11 


LOVE  IN  DIAN'S  LAP 

So,  then,  she  looked  (I  say) ; 

And  so  her  front  sank  down 
Heavy  beneath  the  poet's  iron  crown  : 

On  her  mouth  museful  sweet 

(Even  as  the  twin  hps  meet) 

Did  thought  and  sadness  greet : 
Sighs 

In  those  mournful  eyes 
So  put  on  visibilities ; 
As  viewless  ether  turns,  in  deep  on  deep,  to  dyes. 

Thus,  long  ago, 
She  kept  her  meditative  paces  slow 
Through  maiden  meads,  with  waved  shadow  and  gleam 
Of  locks  half-lifted  on  the  winds  of  dream. 
Till  Love  up-caught  her  to  his  chariot's  glow. 
Yet,  voluntary,  happier  Proserpine  ! 

This  drooping  flower  of  youth  thou  lettest  fall 
I,  faring  in  the  cockshut-light,  astray, 

Find  on  my  'lated  way, 
And  stoop,  and  gather  for  memorial. 
And  lay  it  on  my  bosom,  and  make  it  mine. 
To  this,  the  all  of  love  the  stars  allow  me, 

I  dedicate  and  vow  me. 

I  reach  back  through  the  days 
A  trothed  hand  to  the  dead  the  last  trump  shall  not  raise. 

The  water-wraith  that  cries 
From  those  eternal  sorrows  of  thy  pi6lured  eyes 
Entwines  and  draws  me  down  their  soundless  intricacies. 


78 


TO  A  POET  BREAKING 
SILENCE 

Too  wearily  had  \vc  and  song 
Been  left  to  look  and  left  to  lon^;;. 
Yea,  song  and  \vc  to  lon^j  and  look, 
Since  thine  acquainted  feet  forsook 
The  mountain  where  the  Muses  hymn 
For  Sinai  and  the  Seraphim. 
Now  in  both  the  mountains'  shine 
Dress  thy  countenance,  twice  divine  ! 
From  Moses  and  the  Muses  draw 
The  Tables  of  thy  double  Law  ! 
His  rod-born  fount  and  Castaly 
Let  the  one  rock  brinsj  forth  for  thee, 
Renewing  so  from  either  spring 
The  songs  which  both  thy  countries  sing  : 
Or  we  shall  fear  lest,  heavened  thus  long, 
Thou  should'st  forget  thy  native  song, 
And  mar  thy  mortal  melodies 
W'itli  broken  stammer  of  the  skies. 

Ah  !  let  the  sweet  birds  of  the  Lord 
With  earth's  waters  make  accord  ; 
Teach  how  the  crucifix  may  be 
Carvcn  from  tlic  laurel.-trce, 
Fruit  of  the  Ilcspcrides 
Burnish  take  on  I-'dcn -trees, 
The  Muses'  sacred  grove  be  wet 
With  the  red  dew  of  Olivet, 


79 


LOVE  IN  DIAN'S  LAP 

And  Sappho  lay  her  burning  brows 
In  white  CeciHa's  lap  of  snows ! 

Thy  childhood  must  have  felt  the  stings 
Of  too  divine  o'ershadowings ; 
Its  odorous  heart  have  been  a  blossom 
That  in  darkness  did  unbosom, 
Those  fire-flies  of  God  to  invite, 
Burning  spirits,  which  by  night 
Bear  upon  their  laden  wing 
To  such  hearts  impregnating. 
For  flowers  that  night-wings  fertilize 
Mock  down  the  stars'  unsteady  eyes, 
And  with  a  happy,  sleepless  glance 
Gaze  the  moon  out  of  countenance. 
I  think  thy  girlhood's  watchers  must 
Have  took  thy  folded  songs  on  trust, 
And  felt  them,  as  one  feels  the  stir 
Of  still  lightnings  in  the  hair. 
When  conscious  hush  expects  the  cloud 
To  speak  the  golden  secret  loud 
Which  tacit  air  is  privy  to ; 
Flasked  in  the  grape  the  wine  they  knew. 
Ere  thy  poet-mouth  was  able 
For  its  first  young  starry  babble. 
Keep'st  thou  not  yet  that  subtle  grace  ? 
Yea,  in  this  silent  interspace, 
God  sets  His  poems  in  thy  face ! 

The  loom  which  mortal  verse  affords, 
Out  of  weak  and  mortal  words, 


80 


TO  A  POET  BREAKING  SILENCE 

Wovest  thou  thy  singing-weed  in, 

To  a  rune  of  thy  far  Eden. 

Vain  arc  all  disguises !  Ah, 

Heavenly  incognita  ! 

Thy  mien  bewrayeth  through  that  wrong 

The  great  Uranian  House  of  Song  ! 

As  the  vintages  of  earth 

Taste  of  the  sun  that  ripcd  their  birth, 

We  know  what  nevcr-cadent  Sun 

Thy  lamped  clusters  throbbed  upon, 

What  plumed  feet  the  winepress  trod  ; 

Thy  wine  is  flavorous  of  God. 

Whatever  singing-robe  thou  wear 

Has  the  Paradisal  air  ; 

And  some  gold  feather  it  has  kept 

Shows  what  Floor  it  lately  swept ! 


8i 


(( 


III 


MANUS  ANIMAM  PINXIT" 

LADY  who  hold'st  on  me  dominion  ! 
Within  your  spirit's  arms  I  stay  me  fast 
J  Against  the  fell 

Immitigate  ravening  of  the  gates  of  hell ; 
And  claim  my  right  in  you,  most  hardly  won, 
Of  chaste  fidelity  upon  the  chaste : 
Hold  me  and  hold  by  me,  lest  both  should  fall 
(O  in  high  escalade  high  companion  !) 
Even  in  the  breach  of  Heaven's  assaulted  wall, 
liike  to  a  wind-sown  sapling  grow  I  from 
The  cHft,  Sweet,  of  your  skyward-jetting  soul, — 
Shook  by  all  gusts  that  sweep  it,  overcome 
By  all  its  clouds  incumbent :  O  be  true 
To  your  soul,  dearest,  as  my  life  to  you  ! 
For  if  that  soil  grow  sterile,  then  the  whole 
Of  me  must  shrivel,  from  the  topmost  shoot 
Of  climbing  poesy,  and  my  life,  killed  through, 
Dry  down  and  perish  to  the  foodless  root. 

Sweet  Summer !  unto  you  this  swallow  drew, 
By  secret  instincts  inappeasable, 

That  did  direct  him  well. 
Lured  from  his  gehd  North  which  wrought  him 
wrong. 

Wintered  of  sunning  song ; — 
By  happy  instinfts  inappeasable. 

Ah  yes !  that  led  him  well. 
Lured  to  the  untried  regions  and  the  ncv/ 


82 


"  MANUS  ANIMAM  PINXIT  » 

Climes  of  auspicious  you  ; 
To  twitter  there,  and  in  his  singing  dwell. 

But  ah  !  if  you,  my  Summer,  should  grow  waste, 

With  grieving  skies  o'ercast, 
For  luch  migration  my  poor  wing  was  strong 
But  once  ;  it  has  no  power  to  fare  again 

Forth  o'er  the  heads  of  men, 
Nor  other  Summers  for  its  Sanftuary  : 

But  from  your  mind's  chilled  sky 
It  needs  must  drop,  and  lie  with  stiffened  wings 

Among  jour  soul's  forlornest  things ; 
A  speck  upon  your  memory,  alack  ! 
A  dead  fly  in  a  dusty  window-crack. 

O  therefore  you  who  are 
What  words,  being  to  such  mysteries 
As  raiment  to  the  body  is, 

Should  rather  hide  than  tell ; 
Chaste  and  intelligential  love  : 
W  hose  form  is  as  a  grove 
Hushed  with  the  cooing  of  an  unseen  dove ; 
Whose  spirit  to  my  touch  thrills  purer  far 
Than  is  the  tingling  of  a  silver  bell ; 
Whose  body  other  ladies  well  might  bear 
As  soul, — yea,  which  it  profanation  were 
For  all  but  you  to  take  as  fleshly  woof, 

Being  spirit  truest  proof ; 
Whose  spirit  sure  is  lineal  to  that 
Wliich  sang  Magnificat  : 

Chastest,  since  such  you  are. 
Take  this  curbed  spirit  of  mine, 

83  C2 


LOVE  IN  DIAN'S  LAP 

Which  your  own  eyes  invest  with  light  divine, 
For  lofty  love  and  high  auxiliar 

In  daily  exalt  emprise 

Which  outsoars  mortal  eyes ; 
This  soul  which  on  your  soul  is  laid, 
As  maid's  breast  against  breast  of  maid  ; 
Beholding  how  your  own  I  have  engraved 
On  it,  and  with  what  purging  thoughts  have  laved 
This  love  of  mine  from  all  mortality. 
Indeed  the  copy  is  a  painful  one. 

And  with  long  labour  done  ! 
O  if  you  doubt  the  thing  you  are,  lady, 

Come  then,  and  look  in  me ; 
Your  beauty,  Dian,  dress  and  contemplate 
Within  a  pool  to  Dian  consecrate  ! 
Unveil  this  spirit,  lady,  when  you  will, 
For  unto  all  but  you  'tis  veiled  still : 
Unveil,  and  fearless  gaze  there,  you  alone. 
And  if  you  love  the  image — 'tis  your  own ! 


»4 


A  CARRIER  SONG 

I 

SINCE  you  have  waned  from  us, 
Fairest  of  women  ! 
I  am  a  darkened  cage 
Song  cannot  hymn  in. 
My  songs  have  followed  you, 

Like  birds  the  summer  ; 
Ah  !  bring  them  back  to  me, 
Swiftly,  dear  comer ! 
Seraphim, 
Her  to  hymn, 

flight  leave  their  portals  : 
And  at  my  feet  'earn 
The  harping  of  mortals  ! 

II 

Where  wings  to  rustle  use, 

But  this  poor  tarrier — 
Searching  my  spirit's  eaves — 

Find  I  for  carrier. 
Ah  !  bring  them  back  to  me 

Swiftly,  sweet  comer — 
Swrift,  swift,  and  bring  w  ith  you 
Song's  Indian  summer ! 
Seraphim, 
Her  to  hymn. 

Might  leave  their  portals  ; 
And  at  my  feet  learn 
The  harping  of  mortals  ! 


85 


Love  in  dian's  lap 
III 

Whereso  your  angel  is, 

My  angel  goeth ; 
I  am  left  guardianless, 
Paradise  knoweth ! 
I  have  no  Heaven  left 

To  vpcep  my  wrongs  to ; 
Heaven,  when  you  went  from  us, 
Went  with  my  songs  too. 
Seraphim  y 
Her  to  hymn. 

Might  leave  their  portals  ; 
And  at  my  feet  learn 
The  harping  oj mortals  ! 


IV 

I  have  no  angels  left 

Now,  Sweet,  to  pray  to : 
Where  you  have  made  your  shrine 

They  are  away  to. 
They  have  struck  Heaven's  tent, 

And  gone  to  cover  you  : 
Whereso  you  keep  your  state 
Heaven  is  pitched  over  you  1 
Seraphim^ 
Her  to  hymn. 

Might  leave  their  portals  ; 
And  at  my  feet  learn 
*Ihe  harping  of  mortals  ! 

86 


A  CARRIER  SONG 


She  that  is  Heaven's  Queen 

Her  title  borrows, 
For  that  she,  pitiful, 

Bearcth  our  sorrows. 
So  thou,  Rfgina  mt, 
Spes  infirmoTum  ; 
With  all  our  grieving  crowned 
Mater  dolorum  ! 
Srrapkim, 
Hfr  to  hymn. 

Might  leave  their  portals  ; 
And  at  my  feet  learn 
The  harping  of  mortals  ! 


VI 

Yet,  envious  coveter 

Of  others'  grieving  ! 
This  lonely  longing  yet 

'Scapcth  your  reaving. 
Cruel,  to  take  from  a 
Sinner  his  Heaven  ! 
Think  you  with  contrite  smiles 
To  be  forgiven  ? 
Seraphim, 
Her  to  hymn. 

Might  leave  their  portals  ; 
And  at  my  feet  learn 
The  harping  of  mortals  ! 

87 


LOVE  IN  DIAN'S  LAP 

VII 

Penitent !  give  me  back 

Angels,  and  Heaven ; 

Render  your  stolen  self, 

And  be  forgiven ! 
How  frontier  Heaven  from  you  ? 

For  my  soul  prays,  Sweet, 
Still  to  your  face  in  Heaven, 
Heaven  in  your  face,  Sweet ! 
Seraphim, 
Her  to  hymn, 
Might  leave  their  portals  ; 
And  at  my  feet  learn 
The  harp  ing  of  mortals  ! 


88 


SCALA  JACOBI  PORTAQUE 
EBURNEA 


H 


ER  soul  from  earth  to  Heaven  lies, 
Like  the  ladder  of  the  vision, 
Whereon  go 
To  and  fro, 


In  ascension  and  demission. 
Star-flecked  feet  of  Paradise. 

Now  she  is  drawn  up  from  me, 
All  my  angels,  wet-eyed,  tristful, 

Gaze  from  great 

Heaven's  gate 
Like  pent  children,  very  wistful. 
That  below  a  playmate  see. 

Dream-dispensing  face  of  hers ! 
Ivory  port  which  loosed  upon  me 

Wings,  I  wist, 

Whose  amethyst 
Trepidations  have  forgone  me, — 
Hesper's  filmy  traffickers ! 


8g 


VI 

GILDED  GOLD 

THOU  dost  to  rich  attire  a  grace, 
To  let  it  deck  itself  with  thee, 
And  teachest  pomp  strange  cunning  ways 
To  be  thought  simpHcity. 
But  lilies,  stolen  from  grassy  mold, 
No  more  curled  state  unfold 
Translated  to  a  vase  of  gold  ; 
In  burning  throne  though  they  keep  still 
Serenities  unthawed  and  chill. 
Therefore,  albeit  thou'rt  stately  so, 
In  statcHer  state  thou  us'dst  to  go. 

Though  jewels  should  phosphoric  burn 

Through  those  night-waters  of  thine  hair, 

A  flower  from  its  translucid  urn 

Poured  silver  flame  more  lunar-fair. 

These  futile  trappings  but  recall 

Degenerate  worshippers  who  fall 

In  purfled  kirtle  and  brocade 

To  'parel  the  white  Mother-Maid. 

For,  as  her  image  stood  arrayed 

In  vests  of  its  self -substance  wrought 

To  measure  of  the  sculptor's  thought — 

Slurred  by  those  added  braveries ; 

So  for  thy  spirit  did  devise 

Its  Maker  seemly  garniture. 

Of  its  own  essence  parcel  pure, — 

From  grave  simplicities  a  dress, 


90 


GILDED  GOLD 

And  reticent  demurenesses, 
And  love  encincturcd  with  reserve  ; 
Which  the  woven  vesture  should  subserve. 
For  outward  robes  in  their  ostents 
Should  show  the  souTs  habiliments. 
Therefore  I  say, — Thou'rt  fair  even  so, 
But  better  Fair  I  use  to  know. 

The  violet  would  thy  dusk  hair  deck 

With  graces  like  thine  own  unsought. 

Ah  !  but  such  place  would  daze  and  wreck 

Its  simple,  lowly,  rustic  thought ; 

For  so  advanced,  dear,  to  thee, 

It  would  unlearn  humility  ! 

Yet  do  not,  with  an  altered  look. 

In  these  weak  numbers  read  rebuke  ; 

Which  are  but  jealous  lest  too  much 

God's  master-piece  thou  shouldst  retouch. 

Where  a  sweetness  is  complete. 

Add  not  iweets  unto  the  sweet ! 

Or,  as  thou  wilt,  for  others  jo 

In  unfamiliar  richness  go  ; 

But  keep  for  mine  acquainted  eyes 

The  fashions  of  thy  Paradise. 


9' 


vii 
HER  PORTRAIT 

OH,  but  the  heavenly  grammar  did  I  hold 
Of  that  high  speech  which  angels'tongues  turn  gold  ! 
So  should  her  deathless  beauty  take  no  wrong, 
Praised  in  her  own  great  kindred's  fit  and  cognate  tongue  : 
Or  if  that  language  yet  with  us  abode 
Which  Adam  in  the  garden  talked  with  God ! 
But  our  untempered  speech  descends — poor  heirs ! 
Grimy  and  rough-cast  still  from  Babel's  bricklayers : 
Curse  on  the  brutish  jargon  we  inherit. 
Strong  but  to  damn,  not  memorize,  a  spirit ! 
A  cheek,  a  lip,  a  limb,  a  bosom,  they 
Move  with  light  ease  in  speech  of  working-day ; 
And  women  we  do  use  to  praise  even  so. 
But  here  the  gates  we  burst,  and  to  the  temple  go. 
Their  praise  were  her  dispraise :  who  dare,  who  dare, 
Adulate  the  seraphim  for  their  burning  hair  ? 
How,  if  with  them  I  dared,  here  should  I  dare  it  ? 
How  praise  the  woman,  who  but  know  the  spirit  ? 
How  praise  the  colour  of  her  eyes,  uncaught 
While  they  were  coloured  with  her  varying  thought  ? 
How  her  mouth's  shape,  who  only  use  to  know 
What  tender  shape  her  speech  will  fit  it  to  ? 
Or  her  lips'  redness,  when  their  joined  veil 
Song's  fervid  hand  has  parted  till  it  wore  them  pale  ? 

If  I  would  praise  her  soul  (temerarious  if !), 
All  must  be  mystery  and  hieroglyph. 


92 


HER  PORTRAIT 

Heaven,  wliich  not  oft  is  prodigal  of  its  more 

To  singcr>,  in  their  song  too  groat  before 

(By  which  the  hierarch  of  large  poesy  is 

Restrained  to  his  one  sacred  benefice), 

Only  for  her  the  salutary  awe 

Relaxes  and  stern  canon  of  its  law  ; 

To  her  alone  concedes  pluralities, 

In  her  alone  to  reconcile  agrees 

The  Muse,  the  Graces,  and  the  Charities ; 

To  her,  who  can  the  trust  so  well  conduct, 

To  her  it  gives  the  use,  to  us  the  usufruct. 

What  of  the  dear  administress  then  may 
I  utter,  though  I  spoke  her  own  carved  perfedl  way  ? 
What  of  her  daily  gracious  converse  known, 
Whose  heavenly  despotism  must  needs  dethrone 
And  subjugate  all  sweetness  but  its  own  ? 
Deep  in  my  heart  subsides  the  infrequent  word, 
And  tliere  dies  slowly  throbbing  like  a  wounded  bird. 
\\  hat  of  her  silence,  that  outsweetens  speech  ? 
What  of  her  thoughts,  high  marks  for  mine  own 

thoughts  to  reach  ? 
Yet,  (Chaucer's  antique  sentence  so  to  turn) 
Most  gladly  will  she  teach,  and  gladly  learn  ; 
And  teaching  her,  by  her  enchanting  art, 
The  master  threefold  learns  for  all  he  can  impart. 
Now  all  is  said,  and  all  being  said, — aye  me  ! 
There  yet  remains  unsaid  the  very  She. 
Nay,  to  conclude  (so  to  conclude  I  dare), 
If  of  her  virtues  you  evade  the  snare. 
Then  for  her  faults  you'll  fall  in  love;  with  her. 


91 


LOVE  IN  DIAN'S  LAP 

Alas,  and  I  have  spoken  of  her  Muse — 

Her  Muse,  that  died  with  her  auroral  dews ! 

Learn,  the  wise  cherubim  from  harps  of  gold 

Seduce  a  trcpidating  music  manifold ; 

But  the  superior  seraphim  do  know 

None  other  music  but  to  flame  and  glow. 

So  she  first  hghted  on  our  frosty  earth, 

A  sad  musician,  of  cherubic  birth. 

Playing  to  alien  ears — which  did  not  prize 

The  uncomprehended  music  of  the  skies — 

The  exiled  airs  of  her  far  Paradise. 

But  soon,  from  her  own  harpings  taking  fire, 

In  love  and  light  her  melodies  expire. 

Now  Heaven  affords  her,  for  her  silenced  hymn, 

A  double  portion  of  the  seraphim. 

At  the  rich  odours  from  her  heart  that  rise, 

My  soul  remembers  its  lost  Paradise, 

And  antenatal  gales  blow  from  Heaven's  shores  of  spice  ; 

I  grow  essential  all,  uncloaking  me 

From  this  encumbering  virility. 

And  feel  the  primal  sex  of  heaven  and  poetry : 

And,  parting  from  her,  in  me  linger  on 

Vague  snatches  of  Uranian  antiphon. 

How  to  the  petty  prison  could  she  shrink 

Of  femineity  ? — Nay,  but  I  think 

In  a  dear  courtesy  her  spirit  would 

Woman  assume,  for  grace  to  womanhood. 

Or,  votaress  to  the  virgin  Sandlitude 

Of  reticent  withdrawal's  sweet,  courted  pale. 


94 


HER  PORTRAIT 

She  took  the  cloistral  flesh,  the  sexual  veil, 

Of  her  sad,  aboriginal  sisterhood  ; 

The  habit  of  cloistral  flesh  which  founding  Eve  indued. 

Thus  do  I  know  her.  But  for  what  men  call 

Beauty — the  loveliness  corporeal, 

Its  most  just  praise  a  thing  unproper  were 

To  singer  or  to  listener,  me  or  her. 

She  wears  that  body  but  as  one  indues 

A  robe,  half  careless,  for  it  is  the  use  ; 

Although  her  soul  and  it  so  fair  agree. 

We  sure  may,  unattaint  of  heresy, 

Conceit  it  might  the  soul's  begetter  be. 

The  immortal  could  we  cease  to  contemplate. 

The  mortal  part  suggests  its  every  trait. 

God  laid  His  fingers  on  the  ivories 

Of  her  pure  members  as  on  smoothed  keys, 

And  there  out-breathed  her  spirit's  harmonics. 

I'll  speak  a  little  proudly  : — I  disdain 

To  count  the  beauty  worth  my  wish  or  gain, 

Which  the  dull  daily  fool  can  covet  or  obtain. 

I  do  confess  the  fairness  of  the  spoil, 

But  from  such  rivalry  it  takes  a  soil. 

For  her  I'll  proudlicr  speak  : — how  could  it  be 

That  I  should  praise  the  gilding  on  the  psaltery  ? 

*Tis  not  for  her  to  hold  that  prize  a  prize. 

Or  praise  much  praise,  tliough  proudest  in  its  wise, 

To  which  even  hopes  of  merely  women  rise. 

Such  strife  would  to  the  vanquished  laurels  yield, 

Against  her  suffered  to  have  lost  a  field. 

Herself  must  with  herself  be  sole  compeer, 


95 


LOVE  IN  DIAN'S  LAP 

Unless  the  people  of  her  distant  sphere 

Some  gold  migration  send  to  melodize  the  year. 

But  first  our  hearts  must  burn  in  larger  guise, 

To  reformate  the  uncharitable  skies, 

And  so  the  deathless  plumage  to  acclimatize : 

Since  this,  their  sole  congener  in  our  cHme, 

Droops  her  sad,  ruffled  thoughts  for  half  the  shivering  time. 

Yet  I  have  felt  what  terrors  may  consort 

In  women's  cheeks,  the  Graces'  soft  resort ; 

My  hand  hath  shook  at  gentle  hands'  access, 

And  trembled  at  the  waving  of  a  tress ; 

My  blood  known  panic  fear,  and  fled  dismayed, 

Where  ladies'  eyes  have  set  their  ambuscade ; 

The  rustle  of  a  robe  hath  been  to  me 

The  very  rattle  of  love's  musketry ; 

Although  my  heart  hath  beat  the  loud  advance, 

I  have  recoiled  before  a  challenging  glance, 

Proved  gay  alarms  where  warlike  ribbons  dance. 

And  from  it  all,  this  knowledge  have  I  got, — 

The  whole  that  others  have,  is  less  than  they  have  not ; 

All  which  makes  other  women  noted  fair, 

Unnoted  would  remain  and  overshone  in  her. 

How  should  I  gauge  what  beauty  is  her  dole. 
Who  cannot  see  her  countenance  for  her  soul, 
As  birds  see  not  the  casement  for  the  sky  ? 
And,  as  'tis  check  they  prove  its  presence  by, 
I  know  not  of  her  body  till  I  find 
My  flight  debarred  the  heaven  of  her  mind. 
Hers  is  the  face  whence  all  should  copied  be. 


96 


HER  PORTR^AIT 

Did  God  make  replicas  of  such  as  she ; 

Its  presence  felt  by  what  it  does  abate, 

Because  the  soul  shines  through  tempered  and  mitigate  : 

Where — as  a  figure  labouring  at  night 

Beside  the  body  of  a  splendid  light — 

Dark  Time  works  hidden  by  its  luminousness ; 

And  every  line  he  labours  to  impress 

Turns  added  beauty,  like  the  veins  that  run 

Athwart  a  leaf  which  hangs  against  the  sun. 

There  regent  Melancholy  wide  controls ; 

There  Earth-  and  Heaven-Love  play  for  aureoles ; 

There  Sweetness  out  of  Sadness  breaks  at  fits, 

Like  bubbles  on  dark  water,  or  as  flits 

A  sudden  silver  fin  through  its  deep  infinites  ; 

There  amorous  Thought  has  sucked  pale  Fancy's  breath, 

And  Tenderness  sits  looking  toward  the  lands  of  Death  : 

There  Feeling  stills  her  breathing  with  her  hand. 

And  Dream  from  Melancholy  part  wrests  the  wand  ; 

And  on  this  lady's  heart,  looked  you  so  deep, 

Poor  Poetr)'  has  rocked  himself  to  sleep  : 

Upon  the  heavy  blossom  of  her  lips 

Hangs  the  bee  Musing  ;  nigh  her  lids  eclipse 

Each  half-occulted  star  beneath  that  lies ; 

And,  in  the  contemplation  of  those  eyes, 

Passionless  passion,  wild  tranquillities. 


97 


EPILOGUE  TO  THE  POET^S  SITTEk 

Wherein  he  excuseth  himself  for  the  manner  of  the  Portrait. 

ALAS  !  now  wilt  thou  chide,  and  say  (I  deem) 
My  figured  descant  hides  the  simple  theme  : 
i^Or,  in  another  wise  reproving,  say 
I  ill  observe  thine  own  high  reticent  way. 
Oh,  pardon,  that  I  testify  of  thee 
What  thou  couldst  never  speak,  nor  others  be ! 

Yet  (for  the  book  is  not  more  innocent 
Of  what  the  gazer's  eyes  makes  so  intent), 
She  will  but  smile,  perhaps,  that  I  find  my  fair 
Sufficing  scope  in  such  strait  theme  as  her. 
'  Bird  of  the  sun  !  the  stars'  wild  honey-bee  ! 
Is  your  gold  browsing  done  so  thoroughly  ? 
Or  sinks  a  singed  wing  to  narrow  nest  in  me  ?  * 
(Thus  she  might  say :  for  not  this  lowly  vein 
Out-deprecates  her  deprecating  strain.) 
Oh,  you  mistake,  dear  lady,  quite ;  nor  know 
Ether  was  strict  as  you,  its  loftiness  as  low  ! 

The  heavens  do  not  advance  their  majesty 
Over  their  marge ;  beyond  his  empery 
The  ensigns  of  the  wind  are  not  unfurled. 
His  reign  is  hooped  in  by  the  pale  o'  the  world. 
'Tis  not  the  continent,  but  the  contained. 
That  pleasaunce  makes  or  prison,  loose  or  chained. 
Too  much  alike  or  little  captives  me, 
For  all  oppression  is  captivity. 


98 


EPILOGUE  TO  THE  POET'S  SITTER 

\Miat  groweth  to  its  height  demands  no  higher ; 

The  limit  limits  not,  but  the  desire. 

Our  minds  make  their  own  Termini,  nor  call 

The  issuing  circumscriptions  great  or  small ; 

So  high  constructing  Nature  lessons  to  us  all : 

Who  optics  gives  accommodate  to  see 

Your  countenance  large  as  looks  the  sun  to  be, 

And  distant  greatness  less  than  near  humanity. 

We,  therefore,  with  a  sure  instinctive  mind, 

An  equal  spaciousness  of  bondage  find 

In  confines  far  or  near,  of  air  or  our  own  kind. 

Our  looks  and  longings,  which  affront  the  stars, 

Most  richly  bruised  against  their  golden  bars, 

Delighted  captives  of  their  flaming  spears. 

Find  a  restraint  restrainless  which  appears 

As  that  is,  and  so  simply  natural, 

In  you  ; — the  fair  detention  freedom  call, 

And  overscroll  with  fancies  the  loved  prison-wall. 

Such  sweet  captivity,  and  only  such, 

In  you,  as  in  those  golden  bars,  we  touch  1 

Our  gazes  for  sufficing  limits  know 

The  firmament  above,  your  face  below  ; 

Our  longings  are  contented  with  the  skies, 

Contented  with  the  heaven,  and  your  eyes. 

My  restless  wings,  that  beat  the  whole  world  through, 

Flag  on  the  confines  of  the  sun  and  you  ; 

And  find  the  human  pale  remoter  of  the  two. 


99  H2 


VIII 

DOMUS  TUA 

A  PERFECT  woman— Thine  be  laud ! 
Her  body  is  a  Temple  of  God. 
At  Doom-bar  dare  I  make  avows : 
I  have  loved  the  beauty  of  Thy  house. 


100 


IX 

IN  HER  PATHS 

Ax  D  she  has  trod  before  me  in  these  ways ! 
I  think  that  she  lias  left  here  hcavenlicr  days ; 
L  And  I  do  cuess  her  passage,  as  the  skies 
Of  hol\-  Paradise 
Turn  deeply  holier, 
And,  looking  up  with  sudden  new  delight. 
One  knows  a  seraph-wing  has  passed  in  flight. 

The  air  is  purer  for  her  breathing,  sure  1 

And  all  the  fields  do  wear 

The  beauty  fallen  from  her ; 
The  winds  do  brush  me  with  her  robe's  allure. 
'Tis  she  has  taught  the  heavens  to  look  sweet, 

And  they  do  but  repeat 
The  heaven,  heaven,  heaven  of  her  face ! 
The  clouds  have  studied  going  from  her  grace  ! 
The  pools  whose  marges  had  forgot  the  tread 
Of  Naiad,  disenchanted,  fled, 

A  second  time  must  mourn, 

Bereavcn  and  forlorn. 


Ah,  foolish  pools  and  meads !  You  did  not  see 

Essence  of  old,  essential  pure  as  she. 

For  this  was  even  that  Lady,  and  none  other, 

The  man  in  me  calls  *  Love,'  the  child  calls '  Mother.' 


lOI 


X 

AFTER  HER  GOING 

THE  after-even  !  Ah,  did  I  walk. 
Indeed,  in  her  or  even  ? 
For  nothing  of  me  or  around 
But  absent  She  did  leaven, 
Felt  in  my  body  as  its  soul. 
And  in  my  soul  its  heaven. 

'  Ah  me  !  my  very  flesh  turns  soul, 
Essenced,'  I  sighed, '  with  bliss ! ' 

And  the  blackbird  held  his  lutany, 
All  fragrant-through  with  bhss ; 

And  all  things  stilled  were  as  a  maid 
Sweet  with  a  single  kiss. 

For  grief  of  perfect  fairness,  eve 
Could  nothing  do  but  smile  ; 

The  time  was  far  too  perfed  fair, 
Being  but  for  a  while  ; 

And  ah,  in  me,  too  happy  grief 
BHnded  herself  with  smile ! 

The  sunset  at  its  radiant  heart 
Had  somewhat  unconfest : 

The  bird  was  loath  of  speech,  its  song 
Half -refluent  on  its  breast, 

And  made  melodious  toyings  with 
A  note  or  two  at  best. 


102 


AFTER  HER  GOING 

And  she  was  gone,  my  sole,  my  Fair, 

Ah,  sole  ray  Fair,  was  gone  ! 
Methinks,  throughout  the  world  'twere  right 

I  had  been  sad  alone  ; 
And  yet,  such  sweet  in  all  things'  heart, 

And  such  sweet  in  my  own  ! 


103 


XI 


BENEATH  A  PHOTOGRAPH 

PHCEBUS,  who  taught  me  art  divine. 
Here  tried  his  hand  where  I  did  mine ; 
And  his  white  fingers  in  this  face 
Set  my  Fair's  sigh-suggesting  grace. 
O  sweetness  past  profaning  guess, 
Grievous  with  its  own  exquisiteness ! 
Vesper-Hke  face,  its  shadows  bright 
With  meanings  of  sequestered  Hght ; 
Drooped  with  shamefast  sanftities 
She  purely  fears  eyes  cannot  miss, 
Yet  would  blush  to  know  she  is. 
Ah,  who  can  view  with  passionless  glance 
This  tear-compelling  countenance  ? 
He  has  cozened  it  to  tell 
Almost  its  own  miracle. 
Yet  I,  all-viewing  though  he  be, 
Methinks  saw  further  here  than  he  ; 
And,  Master  gay,  I  swear  I  drew 
Something  the  better  of  the  two ! 


104 


rue  HOUND   OF  HSAVSN 


/ 


THE  MOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

1FLED  Him,  down  the  nights  and  down  the  days ; 
I  fled  I  lim,  down  the  arches  of  the  years ; 
I  fled  Him,  down  the  labyrinthine  ways 
Of  my  own  mind  ;  and  in  the  mist  of  tears 
I  hid  from  Him,  and  under  running  laughter. 
Up  vistacd  hopes  I  sped  ; 
And  shot,  precipitated, 
Adown  Titanic  glooms  of  chasmed  fears, 

From  those  strong  Feet  that  followed,  followed  after. 
But  with  unhurrying  chase, 
And  unperturbed  pace. 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 
They  beat — and  a  Voice  beat 
IMore  instant  than  the  Feet — 
*  All  things  betray  thcc,  w  ho  bctrayest  Me.' 


I  pleaded,  outlaw-wise. 
By  many  a  hearted  casement,  curtained  red, 

Trellised  with  intertwining  charities  ; 
(For,  thou^jh  I  knew  Hi?  love  Who  followed. 

Yet  was  I  sore  adread 
Lest,  having  Him,  I  must  have  naught  beside.) 
But,  if  one  little  casement  parted  wide. 

The  gust  of  His  approach  would  clash  it  to  : 
Fear  wist  not  to  evade,  as  Love  wiat  to  purrue. 
Across  the  margcnt  of  the  world  I  fled. 

And  troubled  the  gold  gatev^'ays  of  the  stais, 
Smiting  for  shelter  on  their  clanged  bars ; 


107 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Fretted  to  dulcet  jars 
And  silvern  chatter  the  pale  ports  o'  the  moon. 
I  said  to  Dawn  :  Be  sudden — to  Eve  :  Be  soon  ; 
With  thy  young  skiey  blossoms  heap  me  over 
From  this  tremendous  Lover — 
Float  thy  vague  veil  about  me,  lest  He  see ! 

I  tempted  all  His  servitors,  but  to  find 
My  own  betrayal  in  their  constancy, 
In  faith  to  Him  their  fickleness  to  me, 

Their  traitorous  trueness,  and  their  loyal  deceit. 
To  all  swift  things  for  swiftness  did  I  sue ; 
Clung  to  the  whisthng  mane  of  every  wind. 
But  whether  they  swept,  smoothly  fleet, 
The  long  savannahs  of  the  blue ; 
Or  whether.  Thunder-driven, 
They  clanged  his  chariot  'thwart  a  heaven, 
Flashy  with  flying  lightnings  round  the  spurn  o'  their 
feet : — 
Fear  wist  not  to  evade  as  Love  wist  to  pursue. 
Still  with  unhurrying  chase, 
And  unperturbed  pace. 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy, 
Came  on  the  following  Feet, 
And  a  Voice  above  their  beat — 
*  Naught  shelters  thee,  who  wilt  not  shelter  Me.' 

I  sought  no  more  that  after  which  I  strayed 

In  face  of  man  or  maid  ; 
But  still  within  the  little  children's  eyes 

Seems  something,  something  that  replies, 
Ihcy  at  least  are  for  me,  surely  for  me ! 


108 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

I  turned  me  to  them  very  wistfully  ; 

But  just  as  their  young  eyes  grew  sudden  fair 

With  dawning  answers  there, 
Their  angel  plucked  them  from  me  by  the  hair. 
*  Come  then,  ye  other  children,  Nature's — share 
With  me  '  (said  I) '  your  delicate  fellowship  ; 

Let  mc  greet  you  lip  to  lip, 

Let  me  twine  with  you  caresses, 
Wantoning 

With  our  Lady-Mother's  vagrant  tresses, 
Banqueting 

With  her  in  her  wind-wallcd  palace, 

Underneath  her  azured  dais. 

Quaffing,  as  your  taintless  way  is, 
From  a  chalice 
Lucent-weeping  out  of  the  dayspring.' 

So  it  was  done  : 
I  in  their  delicate  fellowship  was  one — 
Drew  the  bolt  of  Nature's  secrecies. 

/  knew  all  the  swift  importings 

On  the  wilful  face  of  skies ; 

I  knew  how  the  clouds  arise 

Spumed  of  the  wild  sea-snorting? ; 
All  that's  born  or  dies 

Rose  and  drooped  with  ;  made  them  shapcra 
Of  mine  own  moods,  or  wailful  or  divine  ; 

With  them  joyed  and  was  bercaven. 

I  was  heavy  with  the  even. 

When  she  lit  her  glimmering  tapers 

Round  the  day's  dead  san6litics. 

I  laughed  in  the  morning's  eyes. 


109 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

I  triumphed  and  I  saddened  with  all  weather, 

Heaven  and  I  wept  together, 
And  its  sweet  tears  were  salt  with  mortal  mine ; 
Against  the  red  throb  of  its  sunset-heart 
I  laid  my  own  to  beat, 
And  share  commingling  heat ; 
But  not  by  that,  by  that,  was  eased  my  human  smart. 
In  vain  my  tears  were  wet  on  Heaven's  grey  cheek. 
For  ah  !  we  know  not  what  each  other  says. 

These  things  and  I ;  in  sound  /  speak — 
Their  sound  is  but  their  stir,  they  speak  by  silences. 
Nature,  poor  stepdame,  cannot  slake  my  drouth ; 

Let  her,  if  she  would  owe  me, 
Drop  yon  blue  bosom-veil  of  sky,  and  show  me 

The  breasts  o'  her  tenderness : 
Never  did  any  milk  of  hers  once  bless 
My  thirsting  mouth. 
Nigh  and  nigh  draws  the  chase, 
With  unperturbed  pace. 
Deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy ; 
And  past  those  noised  Feet 
A  voice  comes  yet  more  fleet — 
'  Lo  !  naught  contents  thee,  who  content'st 
not  Me.' 

Naked  I  wait  Thy  love's  uplifted  stroke  ! 
My  harness  piece  by  piece  Thou  hast  hewn  from  me, 
And  smitten  me  to  my  knee ; 

I  am  defenceless  utterly. 

I  slept,  methinks,  and  woke. 
And,  slowly  gazing,  find  me  stripped  in  sleep. 


no 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

In  the  rash  lustihead  of  my  young  powers, 

I  shook  the  pillaring  hours 
And  pulled  my  life  upon  me  ;  grimed  with  smears, 
I  stand  amid  the  dust  o'  the  mounded  years — 
My  mangled  youth  lies  dead  beneath  the  heap. 
My  days  have  crackled  and  gone  up  in  smoke, 
Have  puffed  and  burst  as  sun-starts  on  a  stream. 

Yea,  faileth  now  even  dream 
The  dreamer,  and  the  lute  the  lutanist ; 
Even  the  linked  fantasies,  in  whose  blossomy  twist 
I  swung  the  earth  a  trinket  at  my  wrist. 
Are  yielding  ;  cords  of  all  too  weak  account 
For  earth  with  heavy  griefs  so  overplussed. 

Ah  !  is  Thy  love  indeed 
A  weed,  albeit  an  amaranthine  weed, 
Suffering  no  flowers  except  its  own  to  mount  ? 

Ah  !  must — 

Designer  infinite ! — 
Ah  !  must  Thou  char  the  wood  ere  Thou  canst  limn 

with  it  ? 
My  freshness  spent  its  wavering  shower  i'  the  dust ; 
And  now  my  heart  is  as  a  broken  fount. 
Wherein  tear-drippings  stagnate,  spilt  down  ever 

From  the  dank  thoughts  that  shiver 
Upon  the  sighful  branches  of  my  mind. 

Such  is ;  what  is  to  be  ? 
The  pulp  so  bitter,  how  shall  taste  the  rind  ? 
I  dimly  guess  what  Time  in  mists  confounds ; 
Yet  ever  and  anon  a  trumpet  sounds 
From  the  hid  battlements  of  Eternity  ; 
Those  shaken  mists  a  space  unsettle,  then 


III 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Round  the  half-glimpsed  turrets  slowly  wash  again. 

But  not  ere  him  who  summoneth 

I  first  have  seen,  enwound 
With  glooming  robes  purpureal,  cypress-crowned  ; 
His  name  I  know,  and  what  his  trumpet  saith. 
Whether  man's  heart  or  life  it  be  which  yields 

Thee  harvest,  must  Thy  harvest-fields 

Be  dunged  with  rotten  death  ? 

Now  of  that  long  pursuit 
Comes  on  at  hand  the  bruit ; 

That  Voice  is  round  me  like  a  bursting  sea : 
'  And  is  thy  earth  so  marred, 
Shattered  in  shard  on  shard  ? 

Lo,  all  things  fly  thee,  for  thou  fliest  Me ! 

Strange,  piteous,  futile  thing ! 
Wherefore  should  any  set  thee  love  apart  ? 
Seeing  none  but  I  makes  much  of  naught '  (He  said), 
'  And  human  love  needs  human  meriting : 

How  hast  thou  merited — 
Of  all  man's  clotted  clay  the  dingiest  clot  ? 

Alack,  thou  knowest  not 
How  little  worthy  of  any  love  thou  art ! 
Whom  wilt  thou  find  to  love  ignoble  thee, 

Save  Me,  save  only  Me  ? 
All  which  I  took  from  thee  I  did  but  take, 

Not  for  thy  harms. 
But  just  that  thou  might'st  seek  it  in  My  arms. 

All  which  thy  child's  mistake 
Fancies  as  lost,  I  have  stored  for  thee  at  home : 

Rise,  clasp  My  hand,  and  come ! ' 


112 


THE  HOUND  OF  HEAVEN 

Halts  by  me  that  footfall : 

Is  my  gloom,  after  all, 
Shade  of  His  hand,  outstretched  caressingly  ? 

'  Ah,  fondest,  blindest,  weakest, 

I  am  He  Whom  thou  seekest ! 
Thou  dravest  love  from  thee,  who  dravest  Me.' 


1  r 


ODE  ro  THS  SSTTING  SUN 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

PRELUDE 


T 


HE  wailful  sweetness  of  the  violin 
Floats  down  the  hushed  waters  of  the  wind, 
The  heart-strings  of  the  throbbing  harp  begin 
To  long  in  aching  music.  Spirit-pined, 


In  wafts  that  poignant  sweetness  drifts,  until 
The  wounded  soul  ooze  sadness.  The  red  sun, 

A  bubble  of  fire,  drops  slowly  toward  the  hill, 
While  one  bird  prattles  that  the  day  is  done. 

O  setting  Sun,  that  as  in  reverent  days 
Sinkest  in  music  to  thy  smoothed  sleep. 

Discrowned  of  homage,  though  yet  crowned  with  rays, 
Hymned  not  at  harvest  more,  though  reapers  reap  : 

For  thee  this  music  wakes  not.  O  deceived. 
If  thou  hear  in  these  thoughtless  harmonies 

A  pious  phantom  of  adorings  reaved, 
And  echo  of  fair  ancient  flatteries ! 

Yet,  in  tliis  field  where  the  Cross  planted  reigns, 
I  know  not  what  strange  passion  bows  my  head 

To  thee,  whose  great  command  upon  my  veins 
Proves  thcc  a  god  for  mc  not  dead,  not  dead ! 


117 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

For  worship  it  is  too  incredulous, 

For  doubt — oh,  too  beheving-passionate ! 

What  wild  divinity  makes  my  heart  thus 

A  fount  of  most  baptismal  tears  ? — Thy  straight 

Long  beam  lies  steady  on  the  Cross,  Ah  me  ! 

What  secret  would  thy  radiant  finger  show  ? 
Of  thy  bright  mastership  is  this  the  key  ? 

Is  this  thy  secret,  then  ?  And  is  it  woe  ? 

Fling  from  thine  ear  the  burning  curls,  and  hark 
A  song  thou  hast  not  heard  in  Northern  day ; 

For  Rome  too  daring,  and  for  Greece  too  dark. 
Sweet  with  wild  wings  that  pass,  that  pass  away ! 


ODE 

A  LPHA  and  Omega,  sadness  and  mirth, 
/  \  The  springing  music,  and  its  wasting  breath — - 
-L     *.The  fairest  things  in  life  are  Death  and  Birth, 

And  of  these  two  the  fairer  thing  is  Death. 
Mystical  twins  of  Time  inseparable. 

The  younger  hath  the  holier  array. 
And  hath  the  awfuller  sway  : 

It  is  the  falling  star  that  trails  the  light. 

It  is  the  breaking  wave  that  hath  the  might. 
The  passing  shower  that  rainbows  maniple. 

Is  it  not  so,  O  thou  down-stricken  Day, 
That  draw'st  thy  splendours  round  thee  in  thy  fall  ? 
High  was  thine  Eastern  pomp  inaugural ; 


ii8 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

But  thou  dost  set  in  statelier  pageantry, 

Lauded  with  tumults  of  a  firmament : 
Thy  visible  music-blasts  make  deaf  the  sky, 

Thy  cymbals  clang  to  fire  the  Occident, 
Thou  dost  thy  d\ing so  triumphally  : 
I  see  the  crimson  blaring  of  thy  shawms ! 

Why  do  those  lucent  palms 
Strew  thy  feet's  failing  thicklier  than  their  might, 
Who  dost  but  haod  thy  glorious  eyes  with  night. 
And  vex  the  heels  of  all  the  yesterday's  ? 

Lo  !  this  loud,  lackeying  praise 
Will  stay  behind  to  greet  the  usurping  moon. 

When  they  have  cloud-barred  over  thee  the  West. 
Oh,  shake  the  bright  dust  from  thy  parting  shoon  ! 

The  earth  not  pxans  thcc,  nor  serves  thy  hest ; 
Be  godded  not  by  Heaven  !  avert  thy  face. 

And  leave  to  blank  disgrace 
The  oblivious  world  !  unsceptre  thee  of  state  and  place  ! 

Ha  !  but  bethink  thee  what  thou  gazedst  on. 

Ere  yet  the  snake  Decay  had  venomed  tooth  ; 
The  name  thou  bar'st  in  those  vast  seasons  gone — 
Candid  Hyperion, 
Clad  in  the  light  of  thine  immortal  youth  ! 
Ere  Dionysus  bled  thy  vines, 
Or  Artemis  drave  her  clamours  through  the  wood, 

Thou  saw'st  how  once  against  Olympus'  height 
The  brawny  Titans  stood, 
And  shook  the  gods'  world  'bout  their  ears,  and  how 
Enceladus  (whom  Etna  cumbers  now) 

Shouldt;rcd  me  Pclion  with  its  swinging  pines, 


119 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

The  river  unrecked,  that  did  its  broken  flood 
Spurt  on  his  back  :  before  the  mountainous  shock 

The  ranked  gods  dislock, 
Scared  to  their  skies ;  wide  o'er  rout-trampled  night 
Flew  spurned  the  pebbled  stars :  those  splendours  then 
Had  tempested  on  earth,  star  upon  star 
Mounded  in  ruin,  if  a  longer  war 
Had  quaked  Olympus  and  cold-fearing  men. 
Then  did  the  ample  marge 
And  circuit  of  thy  targe 
Sullenly  redden  all  the  vaward  fight, 
Above  the  blusterous  clash 
Wheeled  thy  swung  falchion's  flash, 
And  hewed  their  forces  into  splintered  flight. 

Yet  ere  Olympus  thou  wast,  and  a  god ! 

Though  we  deny  thy  nod. 
We  cannot  spoil  thee  of  thy  divinity. 

What  know  we  elder  than  thee  ? 
When  thou  didst,  bursting  from  the  great  void's  husk, 
Leap  like  a  Hon  on  the  throat  o'  the  dusk  ; 

When  the  angels  rose-chapleted 
Sang  each  to  other. 

The  vaulted  blaze  overhead 

Of  their  vast  pinions  spread, 
Hailing  thee  brother ; 
How  chaos  rolled  back  from  the  wonder, 
And  the  First  Morn  knelt  down  to  thy  visage  of 
thunder ! 

Thou  didst  draw  to  thy  side 

Thy  young  Auroral  bride. 


120 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

And  lift  her  veil  of  night  and  mystery ; 

Tellus  with  baby  hands 

Shook  off  her  swaddling-bands, 
And  from  the  unswathed  vapours  laughed  to  thee. 

Thou  twi-form  deity,  nurse  at  once  and  sire  I 
Thou  genitor  that  all  things  nourishest ! 
The  earth  was  suckled  at  thy  shining  breast, 
And  in  her  veins  is  quick  thy  milky  fire. 
Who  scarfed  her  with  the  morning  ?  and  who  set 
Upon  her  brow  the  day-fall's  carcanct  ? 

Who  queened  her  front  with  the  enrondured  moon  ? 
Who  dug  night's  jewels  from  their  vaulty  mine 
To  dower  her,  past  an  eastern  wizard's  dreams, 
When,  hovering  on  him  through  his  haschish-swoon. 
All  the  rained  gems  of  the  old  Tartarian  line 
Shiver  in  lustrous  throbbings  of  tinged  flame  ? 
Whereof  a  moiety  in  the  Paolis'  seams 
Statelilv  buildcd  their  Venetian  name. 
Thou  hast  enwoofed  her 
An  empress  of  the  air. 
And  all  her  births  are  propertied  by  thee  : 
Her  teeming  centuries 
Drew  being  from  thine  eyes : 
Thou  fatt'st  the  marrow  of  all  quality. 

Who  lit  the  furnace  of  the  mammoth's  heart  ? 
Who  shagged  him  like  Pilatus'  ribbed  flanks  ? 
Who  raised  the  columned  ranks 
Of  that  old  prc-diluvian  forestry, 
Vvliich  like  a  continent  torn  oppressed  the  sea, 


121 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

When  the  ancient  heavens  did  in  rains  depart, 
While  the  high-danced  whirls 
Of  the  tossed  scud  made  hiss  thy  drenched  curls  ? 
Thou  rear'dst  the  enormous  brood ; 
Who  hast  with  life  imbued 
The  lion  maned  in  tawny  majesty. 
The  tiger  velvet-barred, 
The  stealthy-stepping  pard, 
And  the  lithe  panther's  fleiuous  symmetry. 

How  came  the  entombed  tree  a  light-bearer. 
Though  sunk  in  lightless  lair  ? 
Friend  of  the  forgers  of  earth, 
Mate  of  the  earthquake  and  thunders  volcanic, 
Clasped  in  the  arms  of  the  forces  Titanic 
Which  rock  like  a  cradle  the  girth 
Of  the  ether-hung  world ; 
Swart  son  of  the  swarthy  mine, 
When  flame  on  the  breath  of  his  nostrils  feeds 
How  is  his  countenance  half-divine. 
Like  thee  in  thy  sanguine  weeds  ? 
Thou  gavest  him  his  light, 
Though  sepultured  in  night 
Beneath  the  dead  bones  of  a  perished  world ; 
Over  his  prostrate  form 
Though  cold,  and  heat,  and  storm, 
The  mountainous  wrack  of  a  creation  hurled. 

Who  made  the  splendid  rose 
Saturate  with  purple  glows ; 
Cupped  to  the  marge  with  beauty ;  a  perfume-press 


122 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

Whence  the  wind  vintages 
Gushes  of  warmed  fragrance  richer  far 

Than  all  the  flavorous  ooze  of  Cyprus'  vats  ? 
Lo,  in  yon  gale  which  waves  her  green  cymar, 
With  dusk}-  cheeks  burnt  red 
She  sways  her  heavy  head, 
Drunk  with  the  must  of  her  own  odorousncss ; 

While  in  a  moted  trouble  the  vexed  gnats 
Maze,  and  vibrate,  and  tease  the  noontide  hush. 

Who  girt  dissolved  lightnings  in  the  grape  ? 
Summered  the  opal  with  an  Irised  flush  ? 
Is  it  not  thou  that  dost  the  tulip  drape, 
And  huest  the  daffodilly, 
Yet  who  hast  snowed  the  lily, 
And  her  frail  sister,  whom  the  waters  name, 
Dost  vestal-vesture  'mid  the  blaze  of  June, 
Cold  as  the  new-sprung  girlhood  of  the  moon 
Ere  Autumn's  kiss  sultry  her  cheek  with  flame  ? 
Thou  sway'st  thy  sceptred  beam 
O'er  all  delight  and  dream. 
Beauty  is  beautiful  but  in  thy  glance  : 
And  like  a  jocund  maid 
In  garland-flowers  arrayed, 
Before  thy  ark  Earth  keeps  her  sacred  dance. 

And  now,  O  shaken  from  thine  antique  throne. 
And  sunken  from  thy  ccerulc  cmpery, 

Now  that  the  red  glare  of  thy  fall  is  blown 
In  smoke  and  flame  about  the  windy  sky, 

Where  are  the  wailing  voices  that  should  meet 
Erom  hill,  stream,  grove,  and  all  of  mortal  shape 


123 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

Who  tread  thy  gifts,  in  vineyards  as  stray  feet 
Pulp  the  globed  weight  of  juiced  Iberia's  grape  ? 
Where  is  the  threne  o'  the  sea  ? 
And  why  not  dirges  thee 
The  wind,  that  sings  to  himself  as  he  makes  stride 
Lonely  and  terrible  on  the  Andean  height  ? 

Where  is  the  Naiad  'mid  her  sworded  sedge  ? 
The  Nymph  wan-glimmering  by  her  wan  fount's 
verge  ? 
The  Dryad  at  timid  gaze  by  the  wood-side  ? 
The  Oread  jutting  light 
On  one  up-strained  sole  from  the  rock-ledge  ? 
The  Nereid  tip-toe  on  the  scud  o'  the  surge. 
With  whistling  tresses  dank  athwart  her  face. 
And  all  her  figure  poised  in  lithe  Circean  grace  ? 
Why  withers  their  lament  ? 
Their  tresses  tear-besprent. 
Have  they  sighed  hence  with  trailing  garment-hem  ? 

0  sweet,  O  sad,  O  fair, 

1  catch  your  flying  hair. 

Draw  your  eyes  down  to  me,  and  dream  on  them ! 

A  space,  and  they  fleet  from  me.  Must  ye  fade — 
O  old,  essential  candours,  ye  who  made 
The  earth  a  living  and  a  radiant  thing — 

And  leave  her  corpse  in  our  strained,  cheated  arms  ? 
Lo  ever  thus,  when  Song  with  chorded  charms 
Draws  from  dull  death  his  lost  Eurydice, 
Lo  ever  thus,  even  at  consummating, 
Even  in  the  swooning  minute  that  claims  her  his, 
Even  as  he  trembles  to  the  impassioned  kiss  " 


124 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

Of  reincarnate  Beauty,  his  control 
Clasps  the  cold  body,  and  forgoes  the  soul ! 
W'hatso  looks  lovclily 
Is  but  the  rainbow  on  hfe's  weeping  rain. 
\\  hy  have  we  longings  of  immortal  pain, 
And  all  we  long  for  mortal  ?  Woe  is  me, 
And  all  our  chants  but  chaplet  some  decay, 
As  mine  this  vanishing — nay,  vanished  Day. 
The  low  sky-hne  dusks  to  a  leaden  hue. 

No  rift  disturbs  the  heavy  shade  and  ciiill, 
Save  one,  where  the  charred  firmament  lets  through 
The  scorching  dazzle  of  Heaven  ;  'gainst  which 
the  hill, 
Out-flattened  sombrely, 
Stands  black  as  Hfe  against  eternity. 
Against  eternity  ? 
A  rifting  hght  in  me 
Burns  through  the  leaden  broodings  of  the  mind  : 
O  blessed  Sun,  thy  state 
Uprisen  or  derogate 
Dafts  me  no  more  with  doubt ;  I  seek  and  find. 

If  with  exultant  tread 

Thou  foot  the  Eastern  sea. 

Or  like  a  golden  bee 
Sting  the  West  to  angry  red, 
Thou  dost  image,  thou  dost  follow 

That  King-Maker  of  Creation, 
Who,  ere  I  Icllas  hailed  Apollo, 

Gave  thee,  angel-god,  thy  station  ; 
rhou  art  of  Him  a  type  memorial. 


125 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

Like  Him  thou  hang'st  in  dreadful  pomp  of  blood 
Upon  thy  Western  rood  ; 

And  His  stained  brow  did  vail  like  thine  to  night, 
Yet  lift  once  more  Its  light, 
And,  risen,  again  departed  from  our  ball. 
But  when  It  set  on  earth  arose  in  Heaven. 
Thus  hath  He  unto  death  His  beauty  given  : 
And  so  of  all  which  form  inheriteth 

The  fall  doth  pass  the  rise  in  worth ; 
For  birth  hath  in  itself  the  germ  of  death, 

But  death  hath  in  itself  the  germ  of  birth. 
It  is  the  falling  acorn  buds  the  tree. 
The  faUing  rain  that  bears  the  greenery. 

The  fern-plants  moulder  when  the  ferns  arise. 

For  there  is  nothing  lives  but  something  dies. 
And  there  is  nothing  dies  but  something  lives. 

Till  skies  be  fugitives. 
Till  Time,  the  hidden  root  of  change,  updrics. 
Are  Birth  and  Death  inseparable  on  earth  ; 
For  they  are  twain  yet  one,  and  Death  is  Birth. 


AFTER-STRAIN 

NOW  with  wan  ray  that  other  sun  of  Song 
Sets  in  the  Weakening  waters  of  my  soul : 
One  step,  and  lo  !  the  Cross  stands  gaunt  and  long 
'Twixt  me  and  yet  bright  skies,  a  presaged  dole. 

Even  so,  O  Cross !  thine  is  the  victory. 

Thy  roots  are  fast  within  our  fairest  fields ; 


126 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

Brightness  may  emanate  in  Heaven  from  thee, 
Here  thy  dread  symbol  only  shadow  yields. 

Of  reaped  joys  thou  art  the  heavy  sheaf 

Which  must  be  lifted,  though  the  reaper  groan  ; 

Yea,  we  may  cry  till  Heaven's  great  ear  be  deaf, 
But  we  must  bear  thee,  and  must  bear  alone. 

Vain  were  a  Simon  ;  of  the  Antipodes 

Our  night  not  borrows  the  superfluous  day. 

Yet  woe  to  him  that  from  his  burden  flees, 
Crushed  in  the  fall  of  what  he  cast  away. 

Therefore,  O  tender  Lady,  Queen  Mary, 
Thou  gentleness  that  dost  enmoss  and  drape 

The  Cross's  rigorous  austerity. 

Wipe  thou  the  blood  from  wounds  that  needs  must 
gape. 

'  Lo,  though  suns  rise  and  set,  but  crosses  stay, 
I  leave  thee  ever,'  saith  she, '  light  of  cheer.' 

'Tis  so  :  yon  sky  still  thinks  upon  the  Day, 
And  showers  aerial  blossoms  on  his  bier. 

Yon  cloud  with  wrinkled  fire  is  edged  sharp  ; 

And  once  more  welling  through  the  air,  ah  me  ! 
How  the  sweet  viol  plains  him  to  the  harp. 

Whose  panged  sobbings  throng  tumultuously. 

Oh,  this  Medusa-pleasure  with  her  stings ! 
This  essence  of  all  suffering,  which  is  joy  ! 


127 


ODE  TO  THE  SETTING  SUN 

I  am  not  thankless  for  the  spell  it  brings, 
Though  tears  must  be  told  down  for  the  charmed  toy. 

No ;  while  soul,  sky,  and  music  bleed  together, 
Let  me  give  thanks  even  for  those  griefs  in  me, 

The  restless  windward  stirrings  of  whose  feather 
Prove  them  the  brood  of  immortality. 

My  soul  is  quitted  of  death-neighbouring  swoon, 
Who  shall  not  slake  her  immitigable  scars 

Until  she  hear '  My  sister ! '  from  the  moon, 
And  take  the  kindred  kisses  of  the  stars. 


12M 


TO  THS  T>£AD  CAI^DI^N^AL  OF 
^'6STMI^ST6% 

{Henry  Ed'u-ard  Manning  :   Di^d  January  1892) 


TO  THE  DEAD  CARDINAL 
OF  WESTMINSTER 


I 


WILL  not  pcrturbate 
Thy  Paradisal  state 
With  praise 
Of  thy  dead  days ; 


To  the  new-heavened  say, 
*  Spirit,  thou  wert  fine  clay  ' : 
This  do. 
Thy  praise  who  knew. 

Therefore  my  spirit  clings 
Heaven's  porter  by  the  wings, 
And  holds 
Its  gated  golds 

Apart,  with  thee  to  press 
A  private  business ; — 
Whence, 
Deign  me  audience. 

Anchorite,  who  didst  dwell 
With  all  the  world  for  celJ, 
My  soul 
Round  me  doth  roll 

A  sequestration  bare. 
Too  far  alike  we  were, 
Too  far 
Dissimilar. 


131  K2 


TO  THE  DEAD  CARDINAL  OF  WESTMINSTER 

For  its  burning  fruitage  I 
Do  climb  the  tree  o'  the  sky ; 
Do  prize 
Some  human  eyes. 

Tou  smelt  the  Heaven-blossoms, 
And  all  the  sweet  embosoms 
The  dear 
Uranian  year. 

Those  Eyes  my  weak  gaze  shuns, 
Which  to  the  suns  are  Suns, 
Did 
Not  affray  your  lid. 

The  carpet  was  let  down 
(With  golden  moultings  strown) 
For  you 
Of  the  angels'  blue. 

But  I,  ex-Paradised, 
The  shoulder  of  your  Christ 
Find  high 
To  lean  thereby. 

So  flaps  my  helpless  sail, 
Bellying  with  neither  gale, 
Of  Heaven 
Nor  Orcus  even. 


132 


TO  THE  DEAD  CARDINAL  OF  WESTMINSTER 

Life  is  a  coquetry 
Of  Death,  which  wearies  me. 
Too  sure 
Of  the  amour ; 

A  tiring-room  where  I 
Death's  divers  garments  try, 
TiUfit 
Some  fashion  sit. 


It  seemeth  me  too  much 
I  do  rehearse  for  such 
A  mean 
And  single  scene. 

The  sandy  glass  hence  bear- 
Antique  remembrancer : 
My  veins 
Do  spare  its  pains. 

With  secret  sympathy 
My  thoughts  repeat  in  me 
Infirm 
The  turn  o'  the  worm 

Beneath  my  appointed  sod  ; 
The  grave  is  in  my  blood  ; 
I  shake 
To  winds  that  take 


TO  THE  DEAD  CARDINAL  OF  WESTMINSTER 

Its  grasses  by  the  top ; 
The  rains  thereon  that  drop 
Perturb 
With  drip  acerb 

My  subtly  answering  soul ; 
The  feet  across  its  knoll 
Do  jar 
Me  from  afar. 


As  sap  foretastes  the  spring ; 
As  Earth  ere  blossoming 
Thrills 
With  far  daflfodils, 

And  feels  her  breast  turn  sweet 
With  the  unconceived  wheat ; 
So  doth 
My  flesh  foreloathe 

The  abhorred  spring  of  Dia, 
With  seething  presciences 
Affirm 
The  preparate  worm. 

I  have  no  thought  that  I, 
When  at  the  last  I  die, 
Shall  reach 
To  gain  your  speech. 

134 


TO  THE  DEAD  CARDINAL  OF  WESTMINSTER 

But  you,  should  that  be  so, 
May  very  well,  I  know, 
May  well 
To  me  in  hell 


With  recognizing  eyes 
Look  from  your  Paradise — 
'  God  bless 
Thy  hopelessness !  * 

Call,  holy  soul,  O  call 
The  hosts  angelical, 
And  say, — 
*  See,  far  away 

'  Lies  one  I  saw  on  earth ; 
One  stricken  from  his  birth 
With  curse 
Of  destinate  verse. 

*  Whit  place  doth  He  ye  serve 
For  such  sad  spirit  reserve, — 

Given, 
In  dark  lieu  of  Heaven, 

*  The  impitiable  Daemon, 
Beauty,  to  adore  and  dream  on. 

To  be 
Perpetually 

135 


TO  THE  DEAD  CARDINAL  OF  WESTMINSTER 

*  Hers,  but  she  never  his  ? 
He  reapeth  miseries ; 

Foreknows 
His  wages  woes ; 

*  He  lives  detached  days ; 
He  serveth  not  for  praise ; 

For  gold 
He  is  not  sold ; 

*  Deaf  is  he  to  world's  tongue ; 
He  scorneth  for  his  song 

The  loud 
Shouts  of  the  crowd ; 

*  He  asketh  not  world's  eyes ; 
Not  to  world's  ears  he  cries ; 

Saith, — "  These 
Shut,  if  ye  please !  " 

*  He  measureth  world's  pleasure, 
World's  ease,  as  Saints  might  measure ; 

For  hire 
Just  love  entire 

*  He  asks,  not  grudging  pain ; 
And  knows  his  asking  vain, 

And  cries — 
"  Love !  Love !  "  and  dies, 

136 


TO  THE  DEAD  CARDINAL  OF  WESTMINSTER 

*  In  guerdon  of  long  duty, 
Unowned  by  Love  or  Beauty  ; 

And  goes — 
Tel],  tell,  who  knows ! 

*  Aliens  from  Heaven's  worth. 
Fine  beasts  who  nose  i'  the  earth. 

Do  there 
Reward  prepare. 

'  But  are  kis  great  desires 
Food  but  tor  nether  fires  ? 
Ah  me, 
A  mystery ! 

*  Can  it  be  his  alone, 

To  find  when  all  is  known, 
That  what 
He  solely  sought 

*  Is  lost,  and  thereto  lost 
All  that  its  seeking  cost  ? 

That  he 
Must  finally, 

*  Through  sacrificial  tears, 
And  ancliorctic  years, 

Tryst 
With  the  sensualist  ? ' 


137 


TO  THE  DEAD  CARDINAL  OF  WESTMINSTER 

So  ask  ;  and  if  they  tell 
The  secret  terrible, 

Good  friend, 
I  pray  thee  send 

Some  high  gold  embassage 
To  teach  my  unripe  age. 
Tell! 
Lest  my  feet  walk  hell. 


138 


^•/  CORYMB  us  FOR  <^IUTUMN 


A  CORYMBUS  FOR  AUTUMN 


HEARKEN  my  chant,  'tis 
As  a  Bacchante's, 
A  grape-spurt,  a  vine-splash,  a  tossed 
tress,  flown  vaunt  'tis ! 
Suffer  my  singing, 
Gipsy  of  Seasons,  ere  thou  go  winging ; 
Ere  Winter  throws 
His  slaidng  snows 
In  thy  feasting-flagon's  impurpurate  glows ! 
The  sopped  sun — toper  as  ever  drank  hard — 
Stares  foolish,  hazed, 
Rubicund,  dazed, 
Totty  with  thine  October  tankard. 
Tanned  maiden  !  with  cheeks  like  apples  russet, 

And  breast  a  brown  agaric  faint-flushing  at  tip, 
And  a  mouth  too  red  for  the  moon  to  buss  it 
But  her  cheek  unvow  its  vestalship  ; 
Thy  mists  enchp 
Her  steel-clear  circuit  illuminous, 
Until  it  crust 
Rubiginous 
With  the  glorious  gules  of  a  glowing  rust. 

Far  other  saw  we,  other  indeed. 

The  crescent  moon,  in  the  May-day?  dead, 
Fly  up  with  its  slender  white  wings  spread 

Out  of  its  nest  in  the  sea's  waved  mead. 


141 


A  CORYMBUS  FOR  AUTUMN 

How  are  the  veins  of  thee,  Autumn,  laden  ? 

Umbered  juices, 

And  pulped  oozes 
Pappy  out  of  the  cherry-bruises, 
Froth  the  veins  of  thee,  wild,  wild  maiden ! 

With  hair  that  musters 

In  globed  clusters, 
In  tumbhng  clusters,  like  swarthy  grapes, 
Round  thy  brow  and  thine  ears  o'ershaden ; 
With  the  burning  darkness  of  eyes  like  pansies, 

Like  velvet  pansies 

Wherethrough  escapes 
The  splendid  might  of  thy  conflagrate  fancies ; 
With  robe  gold-tawny  not  hiding  the  shapes 
Of  the  feet  whereunto  it  faUeth  down, 

Thy  naked  feet  unsandalled  ; 
With  robe  gold-tawny  ihkt  does  not  veil 

Feet  where  the  red 

Is  meshed  in  the  brown, 
Like  a  rubied  sun  in  a  Venice-sail. 

The  wassailous  heart  of  the  Year  is  thine ! 
His  Bacchic  fingers  disentwine 

His  coronal 

At  thy  festival ; 
His  revelling  fingers  disentwine 

Leaf,  flower,  and  all. 

And  let  them  faU 
Blossom  and  all  in  thy  wavering  wine. 
The  Summer  looks  out  from  her  brazen  tower, 
Through  the  flashing  bars  of  July, 


142 


A  CORYMBUS  FOR  AUTUMN 

Waiting  thy  ripened  golden  shower ; 

Whereof  there  cometh,  with  sandals  fleet, 
The  North-west  flying  viewlessly, 

With  a  sword  to  sheer,  and  untameable  feet. 
And  the  gorgon-head  of  the  Winter  shown 
To  stiffen  the  gazing  earth  as  stone. 

In  crystal  Heaven's  magic  sphere 

Poised  in  the  palm  of  thy  fervid  hand, 
Thou  seest  the  enchanted  shows  appear 
That  stain  Favonian  firmament ; 
Richer  than  ever  the  Occident 

Gave  up  to  bygone  Summer's  wand. 
Day's  dying  dragon  lies  drooping  his  crest, 
Panting  red  pants  into  the  West. 
Or  the  butterfly  sunset  claps  its  wings 

With  flitter  alit  on  the  swinging  blossom, 
The  gusty  blossom,  that  tosses  and  swings. 

Of  the  sea  with  its  blown  and  ruffled  bosom  ; 
Its  ruffled  bosom  wherethrough  the  wind  sings 
Till  the  crisped  petals  are  loosened  and  strewn 
Overblown,  on  the  sand  ; 
Shed,  curling  as  dead 
Rose-leaves  curl,  on  the  flecked  strand. 

Or  higher,  holier,  saintlier  when,  as  novir, 
All  Nature  sacerdotal  seems,  and  thou. 

The  calm  hour  strikes  on  yon  golden  gong, 
In  tones  of  floating  and  mellow  light 

A  spreading  summons  to  even-song  : 


H3 


ACORYMBUS  FOR  AUTUMN 

See  how  there 
The  cowled  Night 
Kneels  on  the  Eastern  sanftuary-stair. 
What  is  this  feel  of  incense  everywhere  ? 

Chngs  it  round  folds  of  the  blanch-amiced  clouds, 
Upwaf ted  by  the  solemn  thurifer, 

The  mighty  Spirit  unknown, 
That  swingeth  the  slow  earth  before  the  embannered 
Throne  ? 
Or  is't  the  Season  under  all  these  shrouds 
Of  light,  and  sense,  and  silence,  makes  her  known 
A  presence  everywhere. 
An  inarticulate  prayer, 
A  hand  on  the  soothed  tresses  of  the  air  ? 

But  there  is  one  hour  scant 
Of  this  Titanian,  primal  liturgy ; 

As  there  is  but  one  hour  for  me  and  thee, 
Autumn,  for  thee  and  thine  hierophant, 
Of  this  grave-ending  chant. 
Round  the  earth  still  and  stark 
Heaven's  death-Hghts  kindle,  yellow  spark  by  spark, 
Beneath  the  dreadful  catafalque  of  the  dark. 

And  I  had  ended  there : 
But  a  great  wind  blew  all  the  stars  to  flare. 
And  cried, '  I  sweep  the  path  before  the  moon ! 
Tarry  ye  now  the  coming  of  the  moon. 

For  she  is  coming  soon ' ; 
Then  died  before  the  coming  of  the  moon. 
And  she  came  forth  upon  the  trepidant  air. 

In  vesture  unimagined-fair. 


144 


\ 


\ 


A  CORYMBUS  FOR  AUTUMN 

Woven  as  woof  of  flag-lilies  ; 

And  curdled  as  of  flag-lilies 

The  vapour  at  the  feet  of  her, 
And  a  haze  about  her  tinged  in  fainter  wise  ; 
As  if  she  had  trodden  the  stars  in  press, 
Till  the  gold  wine  spurted  over  her  dress, 
Till  the  gold  wine  gushed  out  round  her  feet ; 

Spouted  over  her  stained  wear, 
And  bubbled  in  golden  froth  at  her  feet. 

And  hung  like  a  whirlpool's  mist  round  her. 

Still,  mighty  Season,  do  I  see't, 
Thy  sway  is  still  majcstical ! 
Thou  hold'st  of  God,  by  title  sure, 
Thine  indefeasible  investiture. 

And  that  right  round  thy  locks  are  native  to ; 
The  heavens  upon  thy  brow  imperial, 

This  huge  terrene  thy  ball. 
And  o'er  thy  shoulders  thrown  wide  air's  depending 
paU. 
What  if  thine  earth  be  blear  and  bleak  of  hue  ? 

Still,  still  the  skies  are  sweet ! 
Still,  Season,  still  thou  hast  thy  triumphs  there ! 
How  have  I,  unaware. 
Forgetful  of  my  strain  inaugural. 

Cleft  the  great  rondure  of  thy  reign  complete, 
Yielding  thee  half,  who  hast  indeed  the  all  ? 
I  will  not  think  thy  sovereignty  begun 

But  with  the  shepherd  Sun 
That  washes  in  the  sea  the  stars'  gold  fleeces ; 
Or  that  with  Day  it  ceases, 


H5 


A  CORYMBUS  FOR  AUTUMISJ 

Who  sets  his  burning  lips  to  the  salt  brine, 

And  purples  it  to  wine ; 
While  I  behold  how  ermined  Artemis 

Ordained  weed  must  wear. 

And  toil  thy  business ; 

Who  witness  am  of  her, 
Her  too  in  autumn  turned  a  vintager ; 
And,  laden  with  its  lamped  clusters  bright. 
The  fiery-fruited  vineyard  of  this  night. 


146 


SCCLSSIASriCAL  BALLADS 


[Of  this  series  only  two  Ballads  were  completed : 
'  The  Veteran  of  Heaven  ' — in  some  sense  a  divine 
parody  of  Macaulay's  '  On  the  Battle  of  Naseby ' ;  and 
a  prophetic  apostrophe  of  the  Church  under  the  title 
of  '  The  Lily  of  the  King.'] 


THE  VETERAN  OF  HEAVEN 


O  CAPTAIN  of  the  wars,  whence  won  Ye  so  great 
scars  ? 
In  what  fight  did  Ye  smite,  and  what  manner 
was  the  foe  ? 
Was  it  on  a  day  of  rout  they  compassed  Thee  about, 
Or  gat  Ye  these  adornings  when  Ye  wrought  their 
overthrow  ? 


*  HTwas  on  a  day  of  rout  they  girded  Me  about, 
They  wounded  all  My  brow,  and  they  smote  Me 
through  the  side  : 
My  hand  held  no  sword  when  I  met  their  armed  horde, 
And  the  conqueror  fell  down,  and  the  Conquered 
bruised  his  pride.' 

What  is  this,  unheard  before,  that  the  Unarmed  makes 
war. 
And  the  Slain  hath  the  gain,  and  the  Victor  hath  the 
rout  ? 
What  wars,  then,  are  these,  and  what  the  enemies. 
Strange   Chief,    witli    the   scars    of   Thy    conquest 
trenched  about  ? 


149 


ECCLESIASTICAL  BALLADS 

*The  Prince  I  drave  forth  held  the  Mount  of  the 
North, 
Girt  with  the  guards  of  flame  that  roll  round  the 
pole. 
I  drave  him  with  My  wars  from  all  his  fortress-stars, 
And  the  sea  of  death  divided  that  My  march  might 
strike  its  goal. 

*  In  the  keep  of  Northern  Guard,  many  a  great  dae- 
monian  sword 
Burns  as  it  turns  round  the  Mount  occult,  apart : 
There  is  given  him  power  and  place  still  for  some  cer- 
tain days. 
And  his  name  would  turn  the  Sun's  blood  back  upon 
its  heart.' 


What  is  Thy  Name  ?  Oh,  show  ! — *  My  Name  ye  may  not 
know ; 
'Tis  a  going  forth  with  banners,  and  a  baring  of  much 
swords : 
But  My  titles  that  are  high,  are  they  not  upon  My 
thigh  ? 
"  King  of  Kings !  "  are  the  words, "  Lord  of  Lords !  " ; 
It  is  written  "  King  of  Kings,  Lord  of  Lords."  ' 


150 


n 


LILIUM    REGIS 

OLILY  of  the  King  !  low  lies  thy  silver  wing, 
And  long  has  been  the  hour  of  thine  unqueening ; 
And  thy  scent  of  Paradise  on  the  night-wind 
spills  its  sighs, 
Nor  any  take  the  secrets  of  its  meaning. 
O  Lily  of  the  King  !  I  speak  a  heavy  thing, 

0  patience,  most  sorrowful  of  daughters ! 

Lo,  the  hour  is  at  hand  for  the  troubling  of  the  land, 
And  red  shaU  be  the  breaking  of  the  waters. 

Sit  fast  upon  thy  stalk,  when  the  blast  shall  with  thee  talk, 

With  the  mercies  of  the  King  for  thine  awning  ; 
And  the  just  understand  that  thine  hour  is  at  hand, 

Thine  hour  at  hand  with  power  in  the  dawning. 
When  the  nations  lie  in  blood,  and  their  kings  a  broken 
brood, 

Look  up,  O  most  sorrowful  of  daughters ! 
Lift  up  thy  head  and  hark  what  sounds  are  in  the  dark, 

For  His  feet  are  coming  to  thee  on  the  waters ! 

O  Lily  of  the  King  !  I  shall  not  see,  that  sing, 

1  shall  not  see  the  hour  of  thy  queening  ! 

But  my  Song  shall  see,  and  wake  like  a  flower  that  dawn- 
winds  shake, 

And  sigh  with  joy  the  odours  of  its  meaning. 
O  Lily  of  the  King,  remember  then  the  thing 

That  this  dead  mouth  sang  ;  and  thy  daughters. 
As  they  dance  before  His  way,  sing  there  on  the  Day 

What  I  sang  when  the  Night  was  on  the  waters  ! 


i5» 


TRANSLATIONS 


A  SUNSET 


FROM  Hugo's  *  feuilles  d'automne  * 


{LOVE  the  evenings,  passionless  and  fair,  I  love  the 
evens, 
Whether  old  manor-fronts   their  ray  with  golden 
fulgence  leavens, 
In  numerous  leafage  bosomed  close  ; 
Whether  the  mist  in  reefs  of  fire  extend  its  reaches  sheer, 
Or  a  hundred  sunbeams  splinter  in  an  azure  atmosphere 
On  cloudy  archipelagos. 

Oh  gaze  ye  on  the  firmament  !  a  hundred  clouds  in 

motion. 
Up-piled  in  the  immense  sublime  beneath  the  winds' 
commotion. 

Their  unimagined  shapes  accord  : 
Under  their   waves   at   intervals   flames   a   pale   levin 

through, 
As  if  some  giant  of  the  air  amid  the  vapours  drew 
A  sudden  elemental  sword. 


The  sun  at  bay  with  splendid  thrusts  still  keeps  the 

sullen  fold  ; 
And  momently  at  distance  sets,  as  a  cupola  of  gold, 

The  thatched  roof  of  a  cot  a-glance  ; 
Or  on  the  blurred  horizons  joins  his  battle  with  the  haze  ; 
Or  pools  the  glooming  fields  about  with  inter-isolate 
blaze, 

Great  moveless  meres  of  radiance. 


155 


TRANSLATIONS 

Then  mark  you  how  there  hangs  athwart  the  firma- 
ment's swept  track, 
Yonder,  a  mighty  crocodile  with  vast  irradiant  back, 

A  triple  row  of  pointed  teeth  f 
Under  its  burnished  belly  slips  a  ray  of  eventide, 
The  flickerings  of  a  hundred  glowing  clouds  its  tene- 
brous side 
With  scales  of  golden  mail  ensheathe. 


Then  mounts  a  palace,  then  the  air  vibrates — the  vision 

flees. 
Confounded  to  its  base,  the  fearful  cloudy  edifice 

Ruins  immense  in  mounded  wrack  : 
Afar  the  fragments  strew  the  sky,  and  each  enver- 

meiled  cooe 
Hangeth,  peak  downward,  overhead,  hke  mountains 
overthrown 
When  the  earthquake  heaves  its  hugy  back. 


These  vapours,  with  their  leaden,  golden,  iron,  bronzed 

glows. 
Where  the  hurricane,  the  waterspout,  thunder,  and  hell 

repose. 

Muttering  hoarse  dreams  of  destined  harms, — 
'Tis  God  who  hangs  their  multitude  amid  the  skiey 

deep, 
As  a  warrior  that  suspendeth  from  the  roof-tree  of  his 

keep 

His  dreadful  and  resounding  arms  ! 


156 


A  SUNSET 

All  vanishes  !  The  sun,  from  topmost  heaven  precipitated, 
Like  to  a  globe  of  iron  which  is  tossed  back  fiery  red 

Into  the  furnace  stirred  to  fume, 
Shocking  the  cloudy  surges,  plashed  from  its  impetuous 

ire, 
Even  to  the  zenith  spattereth  in  a  flecking  scud  of  fire 
The  vaporous  and  inflamed  spume. 


O  contemplate  the  heavens  !  Whenas  the  vein-drawn 

day  dies  pale, 
In  every  season,  every  place,  gaze  through  their  every 
veil, 

With  love  that  has  not  speech  for  need  ! 
Beneath  their  solemn  beauty  is  a  mystery  infinite  : 
If  winter  hue  them  like  a  pall,  or  if  the  summer  night 
Fantasy  them  with  starry  brede. 


IS7 


HEARD  ON  THE  MOUNTAIN 

FROM  Hugo's  '  feuilles  d'automne  ' 


HAVE  you  sometimes,  calm,  silent,  let  your  tread 
aspirant  rise 
Up  to  the  mountain's  summit,  in  the  presence  of 

the  skies  ? 
Was't  on  the  borders  of  the  South  ?  or  on  the  Bretagne 

coast  ? 
And  at  the  basis  of  the  mount  had  you  the  Ocean 

tossed  ? 
And  there,  leaned  o'er  the  wave  and  o'er  the  im- 

measurableness. 
Calm,  silent,  have  you  hearkened  what  it  says  ?  Lo,  what 

it  says ! 
One  day  at  least,  whereon  my  thought,  enlicensed  to 

muse. 
Had  drooped  its  wing  above  the  beached  margent  of 

the  ooze. 
And,  plunging  from  the  mountain  height  into  the  im- 
mensity. 
Beheld  upon  one  side  the  land,  on  the  other  side  the  sea. 
I   hearkened,    comprehended, — never,   as   from   those 

abysses. 
No,  never  issued  from  a  mouth,  nor  moved  an  ear  such 

voice  as  this  is ! 

A  sound  it  was,  at  outset,  immeasurable,  confused. 
Vaguer  than  is  the  wind  among  the  tufted  trees  effused. 
Full  of  magnificent  accords,  suave  murmurs,  sweet  as  is 
The  evensong,  and  mighty  as  the  shock  of  panoplies 


158 


HEARD  ON  THE  MOUNTAIN 

When  the  hoarse  meUe  in  its  arms  the  closing  squadrons 

grips, 
And  pants,  in  furious  breathings,  from  the  clarions' 

brazen  lips. 
Unutterable  the  harmony,  unsearchable  its  deep. 
Whose  fluid  undulations  round  the  world  a  girdle  keep, 
And  through  the  vasty  heavens,  which  by  its  surges  are 

washed  young. 
Its  infinite  volutions  roll,  enlarging  as  they  throng, 
Even  to  the  profound  arcane,  whose  ultimate  chasms 

sombre 
Its  shattered  flood  englut  with  time,  with  space  and 

form  and  number. 
Like    to   another   atmosphere,   with   thin   o'erflowing 

robe, 
The  hymn  eternal  covers  all  the  inundated  globe  : 
And  the  world,  swathed  about  with   this   investuring 

symphony. 
Even  as  it  trepidates  in  the  air,  so  trepidates  in  the  har- 
mony. 

And  pensive,  I  attended  the  ethereal  lutany,  . 

Lost  within  this  containing  voice  as  if  within  the  sea. 

Soon  I  distinguished,  yet  as  tone  which  veils  confuse 

and  smother, 
Amid  this  voice  two  voices,  one  commingled  with  the 

other. 
Which  did  from  off  the  land  and  seas  even  to  the 

heavens  a«pirc  ; 
Chanting  the  universal  chant  in  simultaneous  quire. 


159 


TRANSLATIONS 

And  I  distinguished  them  amid  that  deep  and  Tumor- 
ous sound, 

As  who  beholds  two  currents  thwart  amid  the  fluctuous 
profound. 

The  one  was  of  the  waters ;  a  be-radiant  hymnal  speech ! 
That  was  the  voice  o'  the  surges,  as  they  parleyed  each 

with  each. 
The  other,  which  arose  from  our  abode  terranean, 
Was  sorrowful ;  and  that,  alack !  the  murmur  was  of  man  ; 
And  io  this  mighty  quire,  whose  chantings  day  and 

night  resound, 
Every  wave  had  its  utterance,  and  every  man  his  sound. 

Now,  the  magnificent  Ocean,  as  I  said,  unbannering 
A  voice  of  joy,  a  voice  of  peace,  did  never  stint  to  sing, 
Most  like  in  Sion's  temples  to  a  psaltery  psaltering. 
And  to  creation's  beauty  reared  the  great  lauds  of  his 

song. 
Upon  the  gale,  upon  the  squall,  his  clamour  borne  along 
Unpausingly  arose  to  God  in  mere  triumphal  swell ; 
And  every  one  among  his  waves,  that  God  alone  can 

quell, 
When  the  other  of  its  song  made  end,  into  the  singing 

pressed. 
Like  that  majestic  lion  whereof  Daniel  was  the  guest. 
At  intervals  the  Ocean  his  tremendous  murmur  awed  ; 
And,  toward  where  the  sunset  fires  fell  shaggily  and 

broad. 
Under  his  golden  mane,  methought  that  I  saw  pass 

the  hand  of  God. 


1 60 


I 


HEARD  ON  THE  MOUNTAIN 

Meanwhile,  and  side  by  side  with  that  august  fnnfaronnade 
1"he  other  voice,  Hke  the  sudden  scream  of  a  destrier 

affraved. 
Like  an  infernal  door  that  grates  ajar  its  rusty  throat, 
Like  to  a  bow  of  iron  that  gnarls  upon  an  iron  rote, 
Grinded  ;  and  tears,  and  shriekings,  the  anathema,  the 

lewd  taunt, 
Refusal  of  viaticum,  refusal  of  the  font, 
And  clamour,  and  maledidlion,  and  dread  blasphemy, 

among 
That  hurtling  crowd  of  rumour  from  the  diverse  human 

tongue. 
Went   by  as   who   beholdeth,  when   the  valleys  thick 

t'ward  night. 
The  long  drifts  of  the  birds  of  dusk  pass,  blackening 

flight  on  flight. 
What  was  this  sound  whose  thousand  echoes  vibrated 

unsleeping  ? 
Alas !  the  sound  was  earth's  and  man's,  for  earth  and 

man  were  weeping. 

Brothers  !  of  these  two  voices  strange,  most  unimagin- 
ably, 
Unceasingly  regenerated,  dying  unceasingly. 
Hearkened  of  the  Eternal  throughout  His  Eternity, 
The  one  voice  uttercth  Nature,  and  the  other  voice 
Humanity. 

Then  1  alit  in  reverie  ;  for  my  ministering  sprite. 
Alack !  had  never  yet  deployed  a  pinion  of  an  ampler 
(lii-ht, 


i6i 


M 


TRANSLATIONS 

Nor  ever  had  my  shadow  endured  so  large  a  day  to 

burn  : 
And  long  I  rested  dreaming,  contemplating  turn  by 

turn 
Now   that   abyss   obscure  which   lurked   beneath   the 

water's  roll, 
And  now  that  other  untemptable  abyss  which  opened 

in  my  soul. 
And  I  made  question  of  me,  to  what  issues  are  we  here, 
Whither  should  tend  the  thwarting  threads  of  all  this 

ravelled  gear ; 
What  doth  the  soul ;  to  be  or  live  if  better  worth  it  is ; 
And  why  the  Lord,  Who,  only,  reads  within  that  book 

of  His, 
In  fatal  hymeneals  hath  eternally  entwined 
The  vintage-chant  of  nature  with  the  dirging  cry  of 

humankind  ? 


The  metre  of  the  second  of  these  two  translations  is  an  experiment. 
The  splendid  fourteen  syllable  metre  of  Chapman  I  have  treated  after  the 
manner  of  Drydenian  rhyming  heroics,  with  the  occasional  triplet,  and 
even  the  occasional  Alexandrine,  a  treatment  which  can  well  extend,  I 
believe,  the  majestic  resource*  of  the  metre. 


162 


I 


AN  ECHO  OF  VICTOR  HUGO 

CE'S  a  veil  the  real  has  : 
All  the  shadows  of  our  scene 
Are  but  shows  of  things  that  pass 
On  the  other  side  the  screen. 

Time  his  glass  sits  nodding  by  ; 

'Twiit  its  turn  and  turn  a  spawn 
Of  universes  buzz  and  die 

Like  the  ephemeris  of  the  dawn. 

Turn  again  the  wasted  glass ! 

Kingly  crown  and  warrior's  crest 
Are  not  worth  the  blade  of  grass 

God  fashions  for  the  swallow's  nest. 

Kings  must  lay  gold  circlets  down 

In  God's  sepulchral  ante-rooms, 
The  wear  of  Heaven  's  the  thorny  crown  : 

He  paves  His  temples  with  their  tombs. 

O  our  towered  altitudes ! 

O  the  lustres  of  our  thrones ! 
What  !  old  Time  shall  have  his  moods 

Like  Caesars  and  Napoleons ; 

Have  his  towers  and  conquerors  forth, 

Till  he,  weary  of  the  toys, 
Put  back  Ramcbes  in  the  earth 

And  break  his  Nincvehs  and  Troys. 

The  fint  two  itaruat  and  the  lait  arc  my  own  :  the  thoughts  of  the 
otLcri  arc  Victor  1  lugo'i.     The  mef.rc  of  the  original  it  departed  from. 

163  MZ 


MISCSLLANSOUS  POEMS 


T 


DREAM-TRYST 


HE  breaths  of  kissing  night  and  day 
Were  mingled  in  the  eastern  Heaven  : 
Throbbing  with  unheard  melody 
Shook  Lyra  all  its  star-chord  seven  : 

When  dnsk  shrunk  cold,  and  light  trod  shy, 

And  dawn's  grey  eyes  were  troubled  grey ; 
And  souls  went  palely  up  the  sky, 
And  mine  to  Lucide. 


There  was  no  change  in  her  sweet  eyes 

Since  last  I  saw  those  sweet  eyes  shine ; 
There  was  no  change  in  her  deep  heart 

Since  last  that  deep  heart  knocked  at  mine. 
Her  eyes  were  clear,  her  eyes  were  Hope's, 

Wherein  did  ever  come  and  go 
The  sparkle  of  the  fountain-drops 
From  her  sweet  soul  below. 


The  chambers  in  the  house  of  dreams 

Are  fed  with  so  divine  an  air. 
That  Time's  hoar  wings  grow  young  therein, 
And  they  who  walk  there  are  most  fair. 
I  joyed  for  me,  I  joyed  for  her, 

Who  with  the  Past  meet  girt  about : 
Where  our  last  kiss  still  warms  the  air, 
Nor  can  her  eyes  go  out. 

167 


ARAB   LOVE-SONG 

THE  hunched  camels  of  the  night* 
Trouble  the  bright 
And  silver  waters  of  the  moon. 
The  Maiden  of  the  Morn  will  soon 
Through  Heaven  stray  and  sing, 
Star  gathering. 

Now  while  the  dark  about  our  loves  is  strewn, 
Light  of  my  dark,  blood  of  my  heart,  O  come  ! 
And  night  will  catch  her  breath  up,  and  be  dumb. 

Leave  thy  father,  leave  thy  mother 

And  thy  brother ; 

Leave  the  black  tents  of  thy  tribe  apart ! 

Am  I  not  thy  father  and  thy  brother. 

And  thy  mother  ? 

And  thou — what  needest  with  thy  tribe's  black  tents 

Who  hast  the  red  pavilion  of  my  heart  ? 

•  Cloud-shapes  obseived  by  travellers  in  the  Ease. 


1 68 


BUONA  NOTTE 

'Jam  Williams,  in  her  last  letter  to  Skelley,  wrote  : 
'  ff'kydoyou  talk  of  never  enjoy  in gmoments  like  the  fast? 
Are  you  going  to  join  your  friend  Plato,  or  do  you  exfect  1 
shall  do  so  soon  F  Bvona  Notte.^  This  letter  was  dated 
July  6th,andSheUey  was  drowned  on  theSth.  These  verses 
are  supposed  to  he  addressed  to  Jane  by  the  poet^s  spirit 
while  his  body  is  tossing  on  the  waters  ofSpezzia. 

ARIEL  to  Miranda  : — Hear 
This  good-night  the  sea-winds  bear  ; 
I^And  let  thine  unacquainted  ear 
Take  grief  for  their  interpreter. 

Good-night  !  I  have  risen  so  high 

Into  slumber's  rarity, 

Not  a  dream  can  beat  its  feather 

Through  the  unsustaining  ether. 

Let  the  sea-winds  make  avouch 

How  thunder  summoned  me  to  couch, 

Tempest  curtained  me  about 

And  turned  the  sun  with  his  own  hand  out : 

And  though  I  toss  upon  my  bed 

My  dream  is  not  disquieted  ; 

Nay,  deep  I  sleep  upon  the  deep, 

And  my  eyes  are  wet,  but  I  do  not  weep  ; 

And  I  fell  to  sleep  so  suddenly 

That  my  lips  are  moist  yet — could'st  thou  see — 

With  the  good-night  draught  I  have  drunk  to  thee. 

Thou  canst  not  wipe  them  ;   for  it  was  Death 

Damped  my  lips  that  has  dried  my  breath. 


169 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 

A  little  while — it  is  not  long — 
The  salt  shall  dry  on  them  like  the  song. 
Now  know'st  thou  that  voice  desolate, — 
Mourning  ruined  joy's  estate, — 
Reached  thee  through  a  closing  gate. 
*  Go'st  thou  to  Plato  ? '  Ah,  girl,  no ! 
It  is  to  Pluto  that  I  go. 


170 


1 


THE  PASSION  OF  MARY 


VERSES    IN    PASSION-TIDE 


OLADY  Mary,  thy  bright  crown 
Is  no  mere  crown  of  majesty  ; 
For  with  the  reflex  of  His  own 
Resplendent  thorns  Christ  circled  thee. 

The  red  rose  of  this  Passion-tide 
Doth  take  a  deeper  hue  from  thee, 

In  the  five  wounds  of  Jesus  dyed, 

And  in  thy  bleeding  thoughts,  Mary  ! 

The  soldier  struck  a  triple  stroke, 
That  smote  thy  Jesus  on  the  tree  : 

He  broke  the  Heart  of  Hearts,  and  broke 
The  Saint's  and  Mother's  hearts  in  thee. 

Thy  Son  went  up  the  angels'  ways, 

His  passion  ended  ;  but,  ah  me  ! 
Ikou  found'st  the  road  of  further  days 

A  longer  way  of  Calvary  : 

On  the  hard  cross  of  hope  deferred 

Thou  hung'st  in  loving  agony. 
Until  the  mortal-dreaded  word 

Which  chills  our  mirth,  spake  mirth  to  thee. 

The  angel  Death  from  this  cold  tomb 

Of  life  did  roll  the  stone  away  ; 
And  He  thou  barest  in  thy  womb 

Caught  thee  at  last  into  the  day. 
Before  the  living  throne  of  Whom 

The  Lights  oi  Heavcu  burning  pray. 


«7« 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

L'ENVOY 

O  thou  who  dwellest  in  the  day  ! 

Behold,  I  pace  amidst  the  gloom  : 
Darkness  is  ever  round  my  way 

With  little  space  for  sunbeam-room. 

Yet  Christian  sadness  is  divine 
Even  as  thy  patient  sadness  was  : 

The  salt  tears  in  our  Hfe's  dark  wine 
Fell  in  it  from  the  saving  cross. 

Bitter  the  bread  of  our  repast ; 

Yet  doth  a  sweet  the  bitter  leaven  : 
Our  sorrow  is  the  shadow  cast 

Around  it  by  the  hght  of  Heaven. 

O  Hght  in  Light,  shine  down  from  Heaven ! 


172 


MESSAGES 

WHAT  shall  I  your  true-love  tell, 
r'arth-forsaking  maid  ? 
What  shall  I  your  true-love  tell, 
When  life's  spedre's  laid  ? 

'  Tell  him  that,  our  side  the  grave, 

Maid  may  not  conceive 
Life  should  be  so  sad  to  have, 

That's  so  sad  to  leave  ! ' 


^j 


What  shall  I  }our  true-love  tell. 

When  I  come  to  him  ? 
What  shall  I  your  true-love  tcU — 

Eyes  growing  dim ! 

'  Tell  him  this,  when  you  shall  part 

From  a  maiden  pined  ; 
That  I  see  him  with  my  heart, 

Now  my  eyes  are  blind.' 

What  shall  I  your  true-love  tell  ? 

Speaking-while  is  scant. 
\\'hat  shall  I  your  true-love  tell, 

Death's  white  postulant  ? 

*  Tell  him — love,  with  speech  at  strife. 

For  last  utterance  saith  : 
I,  who  loved  with  all  my  life. 

Love  with  all  my  death.' 


173 


AT  LORD'S 

IT  is  little  I  repair  to  the  matches  of  the  Southron  folk, 
Though  my  own  red  roses  there  may  blow ; 
It  is  little  I  repair  to  the  matches  of  the  Southron  folk, 
Though  the  red  roses  crest  the  caps,  I  know. 
For  the  field  is  fuU  of  shades  as  I  near  the  shadowy  coast, 
And  a  ghostly  batsman  plays  to  the  bowling  of  a  ghost, 
And  I  look  through  my  tears  on  a  soundless-clapping  host 
As  the  run-stealers  flicker  to  and  fro, 

To  and  fro  : — 
O  my  Hornby  and  my  Barlow  long  ago ! 


174 


LOVE  AND  THE  CHILD 

WHY  do  you  so  clasp  me, 
And  draw  me  to  your  knee  ? 
Forsooth,  you  do  but  chafe  me, 
I  pray  you  let  me  be  : 
I  will  be  loved  but  now  and  then 
When  it  likcth  me  !  ' 

So  I  heard  a  young  child, 

A  thwart  child,  a  young  child 
Rebellious  against  love's  arms. 

Make  its  peevish  cry. 

To  the  tender  God  I  turn  : — 

'  Pardon,  Love  most  High  ! 
For  I  think  those  arms  were  even  Thine, 

And  that  child  was  even  I.' 


m 


DAPHNE 

THE  river-god's  daughter, — the  sun-god  sought  her, 
Sleeping  with  never  a  zephyr  by  her. 
Under  the  noon  he  made  his  prey  sure, 
Woofed  in  w^eeds  of  a  woven  azure, 
As  down  he  shot  in  a  whistle  of  fire. 

Slid  off,  fair  daughter  !  her  vesturing  water ; 

Like  a  cloud  from  the  scourge  of  the  winds  fled  she : 
With  the  breath  in  her  hair  of  the  keen  Apollo, 
And  feet  less  fleet  than  the  feet  that  follow, 

She  throes  in  his  arms  to  a  laurel-tree. 

Risen  out  of  birth's  waters  the  soul  distraught  errs, 
Nor  whom  nor  whither  she  flieth  knows  she : 

With  the  breath  in  her  hair  of  the  keen  Apollo, 

And  fleet  the  beat  of  the  feet  that  follow, 
She  throes  in  his  arms  to  a  poet,  woe's  me  ! 

You  plucked  the  boughed  verse  the  poet  bears — 

It  shudders  and  bleeds  as  it  snaps  from  the  tree. 
A  love-banning  love,  did  the  god  but  know  it, 
Which  barks  the  man  about  with  the  poet. 
And  muflies  his  heart  of  mortality  ! 

Yet  I  translate — ward  of  song's  gate  ! — 

Perchance  all  ill  this  mystery. 
We  both  are  struck  with  the  self-same  quarrel ; 
We  grasp  the  maiden,  and  clasp  the  laurel — 

Do  we  weep  or  we  laugh  more,  Phcebe  mi  F 


176 


DAPHNE 

*  His  own  green  lays,  unwithering  bays, 
Gird  Keats'  unwithering  brow,'  say  ye  ? 

O  fools,  that  is  only  the  empty  crown  ! 

The  sacred  head  has  laid  it  down 

With  Hob,  Dick,  Marian,  and  Margery. 


>77 


ABSENCE 

HEN  music's  fading  's  faded, 

And  the  rose's  death  is  dead, 
And  my  heart  is  fain  of  tears,  because 
Mine  eyes  have  none  to  shed  ; 

I  said. 
Whence  shall  faith  be  fed  ? 

Canst  thou  be  what  thou  hast  been  ? 

No,  no  more  what  thou  hast ! 
Lo,  all  last  things  that  I  have  known, 

And  all  that  shall  be  last. 
Went  past 
With  the  thing  thou  wast ! 

If  the  petal  of  this  Spring  be 
As  of  the  Spring  that 's  flown, 

If  the  thought  that  now  is  sweet  is 
As  the  sweet  thought  overblown  ; 
Alone 

Canst  thou  be  thy  self  gone. 

To  yester-rose  a  richer 

The  rose-spray  may  bear  ; 
Thrice  thousand  fairer  you  may  be, — 

But  tears  for  the  fair 
You  were 
When  you  first  were  fair  ! 

Know  you  where  they  have  laid  her. 
Maiden  May  that  died — 

178 


ABSENCE 

With  the  loves  that  Hvcd  not 
Strewing  her  soft  side  ? 
I  cried, 
Where  Has-been  may  hide  ? 

To  him  that  waiteth,  all  things ! 

Even  death,  if  thou  wait ! 
And  they  that  part  too  early 

May  meet  again  too  late  : — 
Ah,  fate ' 
If  meeting  be  too  late  ! 

And  when  the  year  new-launched 
Shall  from  its  wake  extend 

The  blossomy  foam  of  Summer, 
What  shall  I  attend. 
My  friend  ! 

Flower  of  thee,  my  friend  ? 

Sweet  shall  have  its  sorrow, 

The  rainbow  its  rain, 
Loving  have  its  leaving, 

And  bliss  is  of  pain 
So  fain. 
Ah,  is  she  bliss  or  pain  ? 


179  »« 


TO  W.  M. 

OTREE  of  many  branches !  One  thou  hast 
Thou  barest  not,  but  grafted'st  on  thee.  Now, 
Should  all  men's  thunders  break  on  thee,  and  leave 
Thee  reft  of  bough  and  blossom,  that  one  branch 
Shall  cHng  to  thee,  my  Father,  Brother,  Friend, 
Shall  cling  to  thee,  until  the  end  of  end. 


i6o 


I 


A   FALLEN  YEW 

T  seemed  corrival  of  the  world's  ^reat  prime, 
Made  to  un-edge  the  scythe  of  Time, 
And  last  with  stateliest  rhyme. 


No  tender  Dryad  ever  did  indue 
That  rigid  chiton  of  rough  yew. 
To  fret  her  white  f^esh  through : 

But  some  god  like  to  those  grim  Asgard  lords. 
Who  walk  the  fables  of  the  hordes 
From  Scandinavian  fjords, 

Upheaved  its  stubborn  girth,  and  raised  unriven, 
Against  the  whirl-blast  and  the  levin. 
Defiant  arms  to  Heaven. 

When  doom  puffed  out  the  stars,  we  might  have  said, 
It  would  decline  its  heavy  head. 
And  see  the  world  to  bed. 

For  this  firm  yew  did  from  the  vassal  leas, 
And  rain  and  air,  its  tributaries, 
Its  revenues  increase, 

And  levy  impost  on  the  golden  sun, 
Take  the  bhnd  years  as  they  might  run, 
And  no  fate  seek  or  shun. 

But  now  our  yew  is  strook,  is  fallen — yea. 
Hacked  like  dull  wood  of  every  day 
To  this  and  that,  men  say. 

i8i 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

Never ! — To  Hades'  shadowy  shipyards  gone, 
Dim  barge  of  Dis,  down  Acheron 
It  drops,  or  Lethe  wan. 

Stirred  by  its  fall — poor  destined  bark  of  Dis ! — 
Along  my  soul  a  bruit  there  is 
Of  echoing  images, 

Reverberations  of  mortality : 

Spelt  backward  from  its  death,  to  me 
Its  life  reads  saddenedly. 

Its  breast  was  hollowed  as  the  tooth  of  eld  ; 
And  boys,  there  creeping  unbelield, 
A  laughing  moment  dwelled. 

Yet  they,  within  its  very  heart  so  crept, 
Reached  not  the  heart  that  courage  kept 
With  vnnds  and  years  beswept. 

And  in  its  boughs  did  close  and  kindly  nest 
The  birds,  as  they  within  its  breast, 
By  all  its  leaves  caressed. 

But  bird  nor  child  might  touch  by  any  art 
Each  other's  or  the  tree's  hid  heart, 
A  whole  God's  breadth  apart ; 

The  breadth  of  God,  the  breadth  of  death  and  life ! 
Even  so,  even  so,  in  undreamed  strife 
With  pulseless  Law,  the  wife, — 


182 


A  FALLEN  YE\^^ 

The  sweetest  wife  on  sweetest  marriage-day, — 
Their  souls  at  grapple  in  mid-way, 
Sweet  to  her  sweet  may  say : 

'  I  take  you  to  my  inmost  heart,  my  true  ! ' 
Ah,  fool !  but  there  is  one  heart  you 
Shall  never  take  him  to  ! 

The  hold  that  falls  not  when  the  town  is  got, 
The  heart's  heart,  whose  immured  plot 
Hath  keys  yourself  keep  not ! 

Its  ports  you  cannot  burst — you  are  withstood- 
For  him  that  to  your  Hstening  blood 
Sends  precepts  as  he  would. 

Its  gates  are  deaf  to  Love,  high  summoner ; 
Yea,  Love's  great  warrant  runs  not  there  : 
You  are  your  prisoner. 

Yourself  are  with  yourself  the  sole  consortress 
In  that  unleaguerable  fortress ; 
It  knows  you  not  for  portress. 

Its  keys  are  at  the  cinfture  hung  of  God  ; 
It;  gates  arc  trepidant  to  His  nod  ; 
By  Him  its  floors  are  trod. 

And  if  His  feet  shall  rock  those  floors  in  wrath. 
Or  blest  aspersion  sleek  His  path. 
Is  only  choice  it  hath. 


I. S3 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

Yea,  in  that  ultimate  heart's  occult  abode 
To  lie  as  in  an  oubliette  of  God, 
Or  in  a  bower  untrod, 

Built  by  a  secret  Lover  for  His  Spouse ; — 
Sole  choice  is  this  your  life  allows, 
Sad  tree,  whose  perishing  boughs 
So  few  birds  house ! 


184 


A  JUDGEMENT  IN  HEAVEN 

ATHWART  the  sod  which  is  treading  for    God* 
/\   the  Poet  paced  with  his  splendid  eyes ; 
1     V  Paradise-verdure    he    stately  passes   *  to  win  to 

the  Father  of  Paradise, 
Through  the  conscious  and  palpitant  grasses  *  of  inter- 
tangled  relucent  dyes. 

The  angels  a-play  on  its  fields  of  Summer  *  (their  wild 

wings  rustled  his  guides'  cymars) 
Looked  up  from  disport  at  the  passing  comer,*  as  they 

pelted  each  other  with  handfuls  of  stars  ; 
And  the  warden-spirits  with  startled  feet  rose,^'hand  on 

sword,  by  their  tethered  cars. 

With  plumes  night-tindlured  englobed  and  cindlured  * 

of  Saints,  his  guided  steps  held  on 
To  where  on  the  far  crystalline  pale  *  of  that  transtcllar 

Heaven  there  shone 
The   immutable   crocean    dawn    •   effusing   from   the 

Father's  Throne. 

Through  the  reverberant  Eden-ways  *  the  bruit  of  his 

great  advent  driven. 
Back  from  the  fulgent  justle  and  press  *  with  mighty 

echoing  so  was  given. 
As  when  the  surly  thunder  smites  *  upon  the  clanged 

gates  of  Heaven. 

I  hare  throughout  thii  poem  used  an  aiteri'k  to  indicate  the  caeiura  in 
the  middle  of  the  line,  after  the  manner  of  the  old  Saxon  lectioii-point. 


185 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

Over  the  bickering  gonfalons,  *  far-ranged  as  for  Tar- 
tarean wars, 

Went  a  waver  of  ribbed  fire  *  — as  night-seas  on  phos- 
phoric bars 

Like  a  fiame-plumed  fan  shake  slowly  out  *  their  ridgy 
reach  of  crumbling  stars. 

At  length  to  where  on  His  fretted  Throne  *  sat  in  tlie 

heart  of  His  aged  dominions 
The   great  Triune,  and  Mary  nigh,  *  lit  round  with 

spears  of  their  hauberked  minions. 
The  Poet  drew,  in  the  thunderous  blue    *  involved 

dread  of  those  mounted  pinions. 

As  in  a  secret  and  tenebrous  cloud  *  the  watcher  from 

the  disquiet  earth 
At  momentary  intervals  *  beholds  from  its  ragged  rifts 

break  forth 
The  flash  of    a  golden  perturbation,  *  the  travelling 

threat  of  a  witched  birth ; 

Till  heavily  parts  a  sinister  chasm,  *  a  grisly  jaw,  whose 

verges  soon, 
Slowly    and    ominously    filled    *    by    the    on-coming 

plenilune, 
Supportlessly    congest  with  fire,  *  and  suddenly  spit 

forth  the  moon  : — 


With  beauty,  not  terror,  through  tangled  error  *  of 
night-dipt  plumes  so  burned  their  charge ; 


1 86 


A  JUDGEMF.XT  T\  HF  WF.X 

Swayed  and  parted  the  globing  clusters  *  so, dis- 
closed from  their  kindling  marge, 

Roseal-chapleted,  splendent-vestured,  *  the  Poet  there 
where  God's  light  lay  large. 

Hu,  hu  !  a  wonder  !  a  wonder  !  see,  *  clasping  the  Poet'? 

glories  clings 
A  dingy  creature,  even  to  laughter  *  cloaked  and  clad  in 

patchwork  things. 
Shrinking  close  from  the  unused  glows  *  of  the  seraphs' 

versicoloured  wings. 

A  Rhymer,  rhyming  a  futile  rhyme,  *  he  had  crept  for 

convoy  through  Eden-ways 
Into  the  shade  of  the  Poet's  glory,  *  darkened  under  his 

prevalent  rays, 
Fearfully  hoping  a  distant  welcome  *  as  a  poor  kinsman 

of  his  lays. 

The  angels  laughed  with  a  lovely  scorning  :  *  —  '  Who 

has  done  this  sorry  deed  in 
The  garden  of  our  Father,  God  ?  *  'mid  his  blossoms 

to  sow  this  weed  in  ? 
Never  our  fingers  knew  this  stuff  :  *  not  so  fashion  the 

looms  of  Eden  ! ' 

The  Poet  bowed  his  brow  majestic,*  searching  that 

patchwork  through  and  through, 
Feehng  God's  lucent  gazes  traverse  *  his  singing-stoling 

and  spirit  too : 


187 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

The  hallowed  harpers  were  fain  to  frown  *  on  the 
strange  thing  come  'mid  their  sacred  crew. 

Only  the  Poet  that  was  earth  *  his  fellow-earth  and 
his  own  self  knew. 

Then  the  Poet  rent  off  robe  and  wreath,  *  so  as  a  slough- 
ing serpent  doth, 

Laid  them  at  the  Rhymer's  feet,*  shed  down  wreath 
and  raiment  both, 

Stood  in  a  dim  and  shamed  stole,*  like  the  tattered 
wing  of  a  musty  moth. 

{The  Poet  addresses  his  Maker) 

'  Thou  gav'st  the  weed  and  wreath  of  song,  *  the  weed 
and  wreath  are  solely  Thine, 

And  this  dishonest  vesture  *  is  the  only  vesture  that  is 
mine ; 

The  life  /  textured,  Thou  the  song  :* my  handi- 
craft is  not  divine  ! ' 

{The  Poet  addresses  the  Rhymer) 

He  wrested  o'er  the  Rhymer's  head  *  that  garmenting 
which  wrought  him  wrong  ; 

A  flickering  tissue  argentine  *  down  dripped  its  shiver- 
ing silvers  long : — 

'  Better  thou  wov'st  thy  woof  of  life  *  than  thou  didst 
weave  thy  woof  of  song ! ' 

Never  a  chief  in  Saintdom  was,  *  but  turned  him  from 
the  Poet  then ; 


i88 


A  JUDGEMENT  IN  HEAVEN 

Never  an  eye  looked  mild  on  him  *  'mid  all  the  angel 

myriads  ten, 
Save  sinless  Mary,  and  sinful  Mary  *  — the  Mary  titled 

Magdalen. 

'  Turn  yon  robe,'  spake  Magdalen,  *  '  of  torn  bright 

song,  and  see  and  feel.' 
They  turned  the  raiment,  saw  and  felt   *  what  their 

turning  did  reveal — 
All  the  inner  surface  piled  *  with  bloodied  hairs,  like 

hairs  of  steel. 

'  Take,  I  pray,  yon  chaplet  up,  *  thrown  down  ruddied 

from  his  head.' 
They   took   the   roseal   chaplet   up,*   and   they  stood 

astonished  : 
Every  leaf  between  their  fingers,*  as  they  bruised  it, 

burst  and  bled. 

*  See  his  torn  flesh  through  those  rents ;  *  see  the  punc- 
tures round  his  hair, 

As  if  the  chaplet-flowers  had  driven  *  deep  roots  in  to 
nourish  there — 

Lord,  who  gav'st  him  robe  and  wreath,*  what  was  this 
Thou  gav'st  for  wear  ? ' 

'  Fetch  forth  the  Paradisal  qarb  !  '  *  spake  the  Father, 

sweet  and  low  ; 
Drew  them  both  by  the  frightened  hand  *  where  Mary's 

throne  made  irised  bow — 
'  Take,  Princess  Mary,  of  thy  good  grace,*  two  spirits 

greater  th.in  ihcy  know.* 


189 


EPILOGUE  TO 

'  A  JUDGEMENT  IN  HEAVEN ' 

VIRTUE  may  unlock  hell,  or  even 
A  sin  turn  in  the  wards  of  Heaven, 
(As  ethics  of  the  text-book  go,) 
So  little  men  their  ov^^n  deeds  know, 
Or  through  the  intricate  mele^ 
Guess  witherward  draws  the  battle-sway  ; 
So  little,  if  they  know  the  deed, 
Discern  what  therefrom  shall  succeed. 
To  wisest  moralists  'tis  but  given 
To  work  rough  border-law  of  Heaven, 
Within  this  narrow  life  of  ours, 
These  marches  'twixt  delimitless  Powers. 
Is  it,  if  Heaven  the  future  showed. 
Is  it  the  all-severest  mode 
To  see  ourselves  with  the  eyes  of  God  ? 
God  rather  grant,  at  His  assize. 
He  see  us  not  with  our  own  eyes ! 

Heaven,  which  man's  generations  draws, 

Nor  deviates  into  replicas. 

Must  of  as  deep  diversity 

In  judgement  as  creation  be. 

There  is  no  expeditious  road 

To  pack  and  label  men  for  God, 

And  save  them  by  the  barrel-load. 

Some  may  perchance,  with  strange  surprise. 

Have  blundered  into  Paradise. 

In  vasty  dusk  of  life  abroad. 


190 


EPILOGUE 

They  fondly  thought  to  err  from  God, 
Nor  knew  the  circle  that  they  trod  ; 
And,  wandering  all  the  nieht  about, 
Found  them  at  morn  where  they  set  out. 
Death  dawned  ;  Heaven  lay  in  prospect  wide 
Lo  !  they  were  standing  by  His  side ! 

The  Rhymer  a  life  uncomplex, 

\\  ith  just  such  cares  as  mortals  vex, 

So  simply  felt  as  all  men  feel. 

Lived  purely  out  to  his  soul's  weal. 

A  double  Hfe  the  Poet  Hved, 

And  with  a  double  burthen  grieved  ; 

The  life  of  flesh  and  life  of  song, 

The  pangs  to  both  lives  that  belong  ; 

Immortal  knew  and  mortal  pain. 

Who  in  two  worlds  could  lose  and  gain, 

And  found  immortal  fruits  must  be 

Mortal  through  hi?  mortality. 

The  life  of  flesh  and  hfe  of  song  ! 

If  one  hfe  worked  the  other  wrong. 

What  expiating  agony 

May  for  him,  damned  to  poesy, 

Shut  in  that  little  sentence  be — 

What  deep  austerities  of  strife — 

'  He  hved  his  life.'  He  hved  kis  life  ! 


191 


THE  SERE  OF  THE  LEAF 

WINTER  wore  a  flapping  wind,  and  his  beard, 
disentwined, 
Blew  cloudy  in  the  face  of  the  Fall, 
When  a  poet-soul  flew  South,  with  a  singing  in  her 
mouth. 
O'er  the  azure  Irish  parting-wall.  * 
There  stood  one  beneath  a  tree  whose  matted  greenery 

Was  fruited  with  the  songs  of  birds ; 
By  the  melancholy  water  drooped  the  slender  sedge,  its 
daughter, 
Whose  silence  was  a  sadness  passing  words : 
He  held  him  very  still, 
And  he  heard  the  running  rill. 
And  the  soul-voice  singing  blither  than  the  birds. 

All  Summer  the  sunbeams  drew  the  curtains  from  the 
dreams 
Of  the  rose-fay,  while  the  sweet  South  wind 
Lapped  the  silken  swathing  close  round  her  virginal 
repose 
When  night  swathed  folding  slumbers  round  her  mind. 
l^ow  the  elf  of  the  flower  had  sickened  in  her  bower, 

And  fainted  in  a  thrill  of  scent ; 
But  her  lover  of  the  South,  with  a  moan  upon  his 
mouth. 
Caught  her  spirit  to  his  arms  as  it  went : 
Then  the  storm.s  of  West  and  North 
Sent  a  gusty  vaward  forth. 
Sent  a  skirring  desolation,  and  he  went. 

*  MiM  Kathariae  Tjnan'g  vitit  to  London,  1889. 
19s 


THE  SERE  OF  THE  LEAF 

And  a  troop  of  roving  gales  rent  the  lily's  silver  veils, 

And  tore  her  from  her  trembling  leaves  ; 
And  the  Autumn's  smitten  face  flushed  to  a  red  dis- 
grace, 
And  she  grieved  as  a  captive  grieves. 
Once  the  gold-barred  cage  of  skies  with  the  sunset's 
moulted  dyes 
Was  splendorously  littered  at  the  even  ; 
Beauty-fraught  o'er  shining  sea,  once  the  sun's  argosy 
To  rich  wreck  on  the  Western  reefs  was  driven ; 
Now  the  sun,  in  Indian  pall, 
Treads  the  russet-amber  fall 
From  the  ruined  trees  of  Heaven. 

Too  soon  fails  the  light,  and  the  swart  boar,  night, 

Gores  to  death  the  bleeding  day  ; 
And  the  dusk  has  no  more  a  calm  at  its  core, 

But  is  turbid  with  obscene  array. 
For  the  cloud,  a  thing  of  ill  dilating  baleful  o'er  the  hill, 

Spreads  a  bulk  hke  a  huge  Afreet 
Drifting  in  gigantic  sloth,  or  a  murky  behemoth, 

For  the  moon  to  set  her  silver  feet ; 
For  the  moon's  white  paces. 
And  its  nostril  for  her  traces. 
As  she  urges  it  with  wild  witch  feet. 

And  the  stars,  forlornly  fair,  shiver  keenly  through  the 
air, 
All  an-aching  till  their  watch  be  ceased  ; 
And  the  hours  like  maimed  flies  lag  on,  ere  night  hatch 
her  golden  dragon 


'93 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

In  the  mold  of  the  upheaved  East. 
*As  the  cadent  languor  lingers  after  Music  droops  her 
fingers, 

Beauty  still  falls  dying,  dying  through  the  days  ; 
But  ah ! '  said  he  who  stood  in  that  Autumn  solitude, 

*  Singing-soul,  thou  art  'lated  with  thy  lays ! 

All  things  that  on  this  globe  err 
Fleet  into  dark  Oftober, 
When  day  and  night  encounter,  the  nights  war  down 
the  days. 

*  For  the  song  in  thy  mouth  is  all  of  the  South, 

Though  Winter  wax  in  strength  more  and  more, 
And  at  eve  with  breath  of  malice  the  stained  windows 
of  day's  palace 
Pile  in  shatters  on  the  Western  floor.' 
But  the  song  sank  down  his  soul  Hke  a  Naiad  through 
her  pool. 
He  could  not  bid  the  visitant  depart ; 
For  he  felt  the  melody  make  tune  like  a  bee 
In  the  red  rose  of  his  heart : 
Like  a  Naiad  in  her  pool 
It  lay  within  his  soul. 
Like  a  bee  in  the- red  rose  of  his  heart. 

She  sang  of  the  shrill  East  fled  and  bitterness  sur- 
ceased : — 

*  O  the  blue  South  wind  is  musical ! 

And  the  garden  's  drenched  with  scent,  and  my  soul 
hath  its  content. 
This  eve  or  anv  eve  at  all.' 


194 


I 


THE  SERE  OF  THE  LEAF 

On  his  form  the  blushing  shames  of  her  ruby-plumaged 
flames 
Flickered  hotly,  like  a  quivering  crimson  snow  : 
*And  hast  thou  thy  content  ?      Were  some  rain  of  it 
besprent 
On  the  soil  where  I  am  drifted  to  and  fro, 
My  soul,  blown  o'er  the  ways 
Of  these  arid  latter  days. 
Would  blossom  like  a  rose  of  Jericho. 

*  I  know  not  equipoise,  only  purgatorial  joys, 

Grief's  singing  to  the  soul's  instrument. 
And  forgetfulness  which  yet  knoweth  that  it  doth  forget ; 

But  content — what  is  content  ? 
For  a  harp  of  singeing  wire,  and  a  goblet  dripping  fire, 
And  desires  that  hunt  down  Beauty  through  the 
Heaven 
With    unslackenable    bounds,    as    the    deep-mouthed 
thunder-hounds 
Bay  at  heel  the  fleeing  levin, — 
The  chaliccd  lucencies 
From  pure  holy-wells  of  eyes, 
And  the  bliss  unbarbed  with  pain  I  have  given. 

*  Is — O  framed  to  suffer  joys ! — thine  the  sweet  without 

alloys 
Of  the  many,  who  art  numbered  with  the  few  f 
And  thy  flashing  breath  of  song,  does  it  do  thy  lips  no 
wrong, 
Nor  sear  them  as  the  heats  spill  through  ? 
When  the  welling  musics  rise,  like  tears  from  heart  to 
eyes, 

195  02 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

•  Is  there  not  a  pang  dissolved  in  them  for  thee  ? 
Does    not    Song,    Hke    the    Queen    of   radiant    Love, 

Hellene, 
Float  up  dripping  from  a  bitter  sea  ? 

No  tuned  metal  known 

Unless  stricken  yields  a  tone, 
Be  it  silver,  or  sad  iron  like  to  me. 

*  Yet  the  rhymes  still  roll  from  the  bell-tower  of  thy 
soul, 
Though  no  tongued  griefs  give  them  vent ; 
If  they  ring  to  me  no  gladness,  if  my  joy  be  sceptred 
sadness, 
I  am  glad,  yet,  for  thy  content. 
Not  always  does  the  lost,  'twixt  the  fires  of  heat  and 
frost. 
Envy  those  whom  the  healing  lustres  bless ; 
But  may  sometimes,  in  the  pain  of  a  yearning  past 
attain. 
Thank  the  angels  for  their  happiness ; 
'Twixt  the  fire  and  fiery  ice. 
Looking  up  to  Paradise, 
Thank  the  angels  for  their  happiness. 

'The  heart,  a  censered  fire  whence  fuming  chants  aspire. 

Is  fed  with  oozed  gums  of  precious  pain  ; 
And  unrest  swings  denser,  denser,  the  fragrance  from 
that  censer. 
With  the  heart-strings  for  its  quivering  chain. 
Yet  'tis  vain  to  scale  the  turret  of  the  cloud-uplifted 
spirit, 
And  bar  the  immortal  in,  the  mortal  out ; 

196 


THE  SERE  OF  THE  LEAF 

For  sometime  unaware  comes  a  footfall  up  the  stair, 
And  a  soft  knock  under  which  no  bolts  are  stout, 

And  lo,  there  pleadeth  sore 

The  heart's  voice  at  the  door, 
"  I  am  your  child,  you  may  not  shut  me  out !  " 

*  The  breath  of  poetry  in  the  mind's  autumnal  tree 
Shakes    down    the    saddened    thoughts    in    singing 
showers, 
But  fallen  from  their  stem,  what  part  have  we  in  them  ? 
"  Nay,"  pine  the  trces,"they  were,  but  are  not  ours." 
Xot  for  the  mind's  delight  these  sered  leaves  alight, 

But,  loosened  by  the  breezes,  fall  they  must. 
U  hat  ill  if  they  decay  ?  yet  some  a  little  way 
IMay  flit  before  deserted  by  the  gust, 
May  touch  some  spirit's  hair, 
May  cling  one  moment  there, — 
She  turns  ;  they  tremble  down.    Drift  o'er  them, 
dust ! ' 


197 


TO  STARS 


You,  my  unrest,  and  Night's  tranquillity, 
Bringers  of  peace  to  it,  and  pang  to  me  : 
You  that  on  heaven  and  on  my  heart  cast  fire, 
To  heaven  a  purging  light,  my  heart  unpurged  desire ; 
Bright  juts  for  foothold  to  the  climbing  sight 
Which  else  must  slip  from  the  steep  infinite ; 
Reared  standards  which  the  sequent  centuries 
Snatch,  each  from  his  forerunner's  grasp  who  dies. 
To  lead  our  forlorn  hope  upon  the  skies ; 
Bells  that  from  night's  great  bell-tower  hang  in  gold, 
Whereon  God  rings  His  changes  manifold  ; 
Meek  guides  and  daughters  to  the  blinded  heaven 
In  CEdipean,  remitless  wandering  driven  ; 
The  burning  rhetoric,  quenchless  oratory, 
Of  the  magniloquent  and  all-suasive  sky  ; 
I  see  and  feel  you — but  to  feel  and  see 
How  two  child-eyes  have  dulled  a  firmament  for  me. 

Once  did  I  bring  her,  hurt  upon  her  bed, 

Flowers  we  had  loved  together  ;  brought,  and  said  : — 

*  I  plucked  them ;  yester-morn  you  liked  them  wild.' 
And  then  she  laid  them  on  my  eyes,  and  smiled. 
And  now,  poor  Stars,  your  fairness  is  not  fair, 
Because  I  cannot  gather  it  for  her  ; 

I  cannot  sheave  you  in  my  arms,  and  say  : — 

*  See,  sweet,  you  liked  these  yester-eve  ;  like  them  for 

me  to-day ! ' 

She  has  no  care,  my  Stars,  of  you  or  me ; 
She  has  no  care,  we  tire  her  speedily  j 

198 


i 


TO  STARS 

She  has  no  care,  because  she  cannot  see — 

She  cannot  see,  who  sees  not  past  her  sight. 

We  are  set  too  high,  we  tire  her  with  our  height : 

Her  years  are  small,  and  ill  to  strain  above. 

She  may  not  love  us :  wherefore  keep  we  love 

To  her  who  may  not  love  us — you  and  I  ? 

And  yet  you  thrill  down  towards  her,  even  as  I, 

With  all  your  golden  eloquence  held  in  mute. 

We  may  not  plead,  we  may  not  plead  our  suit ; 

Our  winged  love  must  beat  against  its  bars  : 

For  should  she  enter  once  within  those  guarding  bars, 

Our  love  would  do  her  hurt — oh,  think  of  that,  my  Stars 


199 


LINES  FOR  A  DRAWING  OF 
OUR  LADY  OF  THE  NIGHT 


T 


HIS,  could  I  paint  my  inward  sight, 
This  were  Our  Lady  of  the  Night : 


She  bears  on  her  front's  lucency 
The  starhght  of  her  purity : 

For  as  the  white  rays  of  that  star 
The  union  of  all  colours  are, 

She  sums  all  virtues  that  may  be 
In  her  sweet  light  of  purity. 

The  mantle  which  she  holds  on  high 
Is  the  great  mantle  of  the  sky. 

Think,  O  sick  toiler,  when  the  night 
Comes  on  thee,  sad  and  infinite, 

Think,  sometimes,  'tis  our  own  Lady 
Spreads  her  blue  mantle  over  thee, 

And  folds  the  earth,  a  wearied  thing. 
Beneath  its  gentle  shadowing ; 

Then  rest  a  little  ;  and  in  sleep 
Forget  to  weep,  forget  to  weep  ! 


200 


ORISON-TRYST 

SHE  told  me,  in  the  morning  her  white  thought 
Did  beat  to  Godward,  Hke  a  carrier-dove. 
My  name  beneath  its  wing.  And  I — how  long ! — 
That,  hke  a  bubble  from  a  water-flower 
Released  as  it  withdraws  itself  up-curled 
Into  the  nightly  lake,  her  sighed  name 
So  loosened  from  my  sleepward-sinking  heart ; 
And  in  the  morning  did  like  Phosphor  set  it 
To  lead  the  vanward  of  my  orient  soul 
\\  hen  it  storms  Heaven  ;  and  did  all  alone, 
Methought,  upon  the  live  coals  of  my  love 
Those  distillations  of  rich  memory  cast 
To  feed  the  fumes  of  prayer : — oh  !  I  was  then 
Like  one  who,  dreaming  soHtude,  awakes 
In  sobbing  from  his  dream  ;  and,  straining  arms 
That  ache  for  their  own  void,  with  sudden  shock 
Takes  a  dear  form  beside  him. 

Now,  when  light 
Pricks  at  my  lids,  I  never  rouse  but  think — 
'  Is 't  orison-time  with  her  ? ' — And  then  my  hand 
Presses  thy  letters  in  my  pulses  shook  ; 
Where,  neighboured  on  my  heart  with  those  pure  linc3 
In  amity  of  kindred  purcness,  lies 
Image  of  Her  conceived  Immaculate ; 
And  on  the  purple  inward,  thine, — ah  !  thine 
O'  the  purple-lined  side. 

And  I  do  set 
Tryst  with  thy  soul  in  its  own  Paradise ; 
As  lovers  of  an  cart  hly  rate  that  use, 
In  severance,  for  their  sweet  messages 
Some  concave  of  a  tree,  and  do  their  hearts 


201 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

Enharbour  in  its  continent  heart — I  drop 

My  message  in  the  hollow  breast  of  God. 

Thy  name  is  known  in  Heaven  ;  yea,  Heaven  is  weary 

With  the  reverberation  of  thy  name ; 

I  fill  with  it  the  gap  between  two  sleeps, 

The  inter-pause  of  dream  :  hell's  gates  have  learned 

To  shake  in  it ;  and  their  fierce  forayers 

Before  the  iterate  echoing  recoil, 

In  armed  watches  when  my  preparate  soul 

(A  war-cry  in  the  alarums  of  the  Night) 

Conjoins  thy  name  with  Hers,  Auxihatrix. 


202 


'whereto  art  thou 

COME  ? ' 

'  1     FRIEND,  whereto  art  thou  come  ? '  Thus  Verity  ; 
r"^  Of  each  that  to  the  world's  sad  Olivet 
1.      Comes  with  no  multitude,  but  alone  by  night, 

Lit  with  the  one  torch  of  his  lifted  soul, 

Seeking  her  that  he  may  lay  hands  on  her ; 

Thus  :  and  waits  answer  from  the  mouth  of  deed. 

Truth  is  a  maid,  whom  men  woo  diversely ; 

This,  as  a  spouse  ;  that,  as  a  light-o'-love, 

To  know,  and  having  known,  to  make  his  brag. 

But  woe  to  him  that  takes  the  immortal  kiss, 

And  not  estates  her  in  his  housing  life, 

Mother  of  all  his  seed  !  So  he  betrays, 

Not  Truth,  the  unbetrayable,  but  himself : 

And  with  his  kiss's  rated  traitor-craft 

The  Haceldama  of  a  plot  of  days 

He  buys,  to  consummate  his  Judasry 

Therein  with  Judas'  guerdon  of  despair. 


203 


SONG  OF  THE  HOURS 

SCENE :  Before  the  Palace  of  the  Sun,  into  which  a  god  has 
just  -passed  as  the  guest  of  Hy-perion.     Time  :  Dawn. 
The  Hours  of  Night  and  Day  advance  on  each  other 
as  the  gates  close. 

MORNING    HOURS 

IN  curbed  expanses  our  wheeling  dances 
Meet  from  the  left  and  right ; 
Under  this  vaporous  awning 
Tarrying  awhile  in  our  flight, 
Waiting  the  day's  advances. 
We,  the  children  of  light, 
Clasp  you  on  verge  of  the  dawning, 
Sisters  of  Even  and  Night ! 

CHORUS 

We  who  lash  from  the  way  of  the  sun 

With  the  whip  of  the  winds  the  thronging  clouds, 
Who  puff  out  the  lights  of  the  stars,  or  run 

To  scare  dreams  back  to  their  shrouds, 
Or  tiar  the  temples  of  Heaven 

With  a  crystalline  gleam  of  showers ; 

EVENING    HOURS 

While  to  flit  with  the  soft  moth.  Even, 
Round  the  lamp  of  the  day  is  ours ; 

NIGHT    HOURS 

And  ours  with  her  crescent  argentine. 

To  make  Night's  forehead  fair, 
To  wheel  up  her  throne  of  the  earth,  and  twine 

The  daffodils  in  her  hair ; 


204 


SONG  OF  THE  HOURS 

ALL 

We,  moulted  as  plumes  are, 

From  the  wings  whereon  Time  is  borne ; 

MORNING    HOURS 

We,  buds  who  in  blossoming  foretell 
The  date  when  our  leaves  shall  be  torn ; 

NIGHT    HOURS 

We,  knowing  our  dooms  are  to  plunge  with  the 
gloom's  car 
Down  the  steep  ruin  of  morn ; 

ALL 

We  hail  thee.  Immortal ! 
We  robes  of  Life,  mouldering  while  worn. 

NIGHT    HOURS 

Sea-birds,  winging  o'er  sea  calm-strewn 
To  the  lure  of  the  beacon-stars,  are  we. 

O'er  the  foamy  wake  of  the  white-sailed  moon. 
Which  to  men  is  the  Galaxy. 

MORNING    HOURS 

Our  eyes,  through  our  pinions  folJen, 

By  the  filtered  flame  are  teased 
As  we  bow  when  the  sun  makes  golden 

Earthquake  in  the  East. 


205 


MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS 

EVENING  HOURS 

And  we  shake  on  the  sky  a  dusted  fire 

From  the  ripened  sunset's  anther, 
While  the  flecked  main,  drowsing  in  gorged  desire, 

Purrs  hke  an  outstretched  panther. 

MORNING  HOURS 

O'er  the  dead  moon-maid 

We  draw  softly  the  day's  white  pall ; 
And  our  children  the  Moments  we  see  as 

In  drops  of  the  dew  they  fall, 
Or  on  light  plumes  laid  they  shoot  the  cascade 

Of  colours  some  Heaven's  bow  call ; 


ALL 

And  we  sing.  Guest,  to  thee,  as 
Thou  pacest  the  crystal-paved  hall ! 

We,  while  the  sun  with  his  hid  chain  swings 

Like  a  censer  around  him  the  blossom-sweet  earth, 
Who  dare  the  lark  with  our  passionate  wings. 

And  its  mirth  with  our  masterless  mirth  ; 

Or — when  that  flying  laughter 
Has  sunk  and  died  away 

Which  beat  against  Heaven's  rafter — 
Who  vex  the  clear  eyes  of  day. 
Who  weave  for  the  sky  in  the  loom  of  the  cloud 

A  mantle  of  waving  rain. 
We,  whose  hair  is  jewelled  with  joys,  or  bowed 

Under  veilings  of  misty  pain ; 


206 


SONG  OF  THE  HOURS 

We  hymn  thee  at  leaving 
Who  strew  thy  feet's  coming,  O  Guest ! 

We,  the  Hnked  cin6lure  which  girdles 
Mortality's  feverous  breast, 
Who  heave  in  its  heaving,  who  grieve  in  its  grieving, 

Are  restless  in  its  unrest ; 
Our  beings  unstirred  else 

Were  it  not  for  the  bosom  they  pressed. 

We  see  the  wind,  like  a  light  swift  leopard 

Leap  on  the  flocks  of  the  cloud  that  flee, 
As  we  follow  the  feet  of  the  radiant  shepherd 

Whose  bright  sheep  drink  of  the  sea. 

When  that  drunken  Titan  the  Thunder 
Stumbles  through  staggered  Heaven, 

And  spills  on  the  scorched  earth  under 
The  fiery  wine  of  the  levin, 
With  our  mystic  measure  of  rhythmic  motion 

We  charm  him  in  snorting  sleep. 
While  round  him  the  sun  enchants  from  ocean 

The  walls  of  a  cloudy  keep. 

Beneath  the  deep  umbers 
Of  night  as  we  watch  and  hark. 

The  dim-winged  dreams  which  feed  on 
The  blossoms  of  day  we  mark. 
As  in  murmurous  numbers  they  swarm  to  the 
slumbers 

That  cell  the  hive  of  the  dark  ; 
And  life  shakes,  a  reed  on 

Our  tide,  in  the  death-wind  stark. 


207 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

Time,  Eternity's  fountain,  whose  waters 

Fall  back  thither  from  whence  they  rose, 
Deweth  with  us,  its  showery  daughters. 

The  Life  that  is  green  in  its  flows. 
But  whether  in  grief  or  mirth  we  shower, 

We  make  not  the  thing  we  breed, 
For  what  may  come  of  the  passing  Hour 
Is  what  was  hid  in  the  seed. 
And  now  as  wakes. 

Like  love  in  its  first  bUnd  guesses, 
Or  a  snake  just  stirring  its  coils, 
Sweet  tune  into  half-caresses. 
Before  the  sun  shakes  the  cHnging  flakes 

Of  gloom  from  his  spouting  tresses, 
Let  winds  have  toils 

To  catch  at  our  fluttering  dresses ! 
Winter,  that  numbeth  the  throstle  and  stilled  wren, 

Has  keen  frost-edges  our  plumes  to  pare. 
Till  we  break,  with  the  Summer's  laughing  children. 
Over  the  fields  of  air. 

While  the  winds  in  their  tricksome  courses 

The  snowy  steeds  vault  upon 
That  are  foaled  of  the  white  sea-horses 
And  washed  in  the  streams  of  the  sun. 
Thaw,  O  thaw  the  enchanted  throbbings 

Curdled  at  Music's  heart ; 
Tread  she  her  grapes  till  from  their  englobings 
The  melodies  spurt  and  smart ! 
We  fleet  as  a  rain. 

Nor  yearn  for  the  being  men  own. 


208 


SONG  OF  THE  HOURS 

With  whom  is  naught  beginneth 
Or  cndeth  without  some  moan  ; 

\Vc  soar  to  our  zenith 

And  are  panglcssly  overblown. 

Yet,  if  the  roots  of  the  truth  were  bare, 

Our  transience  is  only  a  mortal  seeming  ; 
Fond  men,  we  are  fixed  as  a  still  despair. 
And  we  fleet  but  in  your  dreaming. 

We  are  columns  in  Time's  hall,  mortals, 

Wherethrough  Life  hurricth  ; 
You  pass  in  at  birth's  wide  portals, 
And  out  at  the  postern  of  death. 
As  you  chase  down  the  vista  your  dream  or  your  love 

The  swift  pillars  race  you  by, 
And  you  think  it  is  we  who  move,  who  move, — 
It  is  you  who  die,  who  die  ! 
O  firmament,  even 

You  pass,  by  whose  fixture  man  voweth  ; 
God  breathes  you  forth  as  a  bubble 

And  shall  suck  you  back  into  His  mouth  ! 
Through  earth,  sea,  and  heaven  a  doom  shall  be 
driven. 
And,  sown  in  the  furrows  it  plougheth. 
As  fire  bursts  from  stubble 

Shall  spring  the  new  wonders  none  troweth. 

The  bowed  East  liftcth  the  dripping  sun, 

A  golden  cup,  to  the  lips  of  Night, 
Over  whose  check  in  flushes  run 

The  heats  of  the  liquid  light. 


209 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 


MORNING    HOURS 


To  our  very  pinions'  ridge 

We  tremble  expeftantly  ; — 
Is  it  ready,  the  burnished  bridge 

We  must  cast  for  our  King  o'er  the  sea  ? 
And  who  will  kneel  with  sunbeam-slips 

To  dry  the  flowers'  sweet  eyes  ? 
Who  touch  with  fire  her  finger-tips 
For  the  lamp  of  the  grape,  as  she  flies  ? 

ALL 

List,  list  to  the  prances,  his  chariot  advances, 

It  comes  in  a  dust  of  light ! 
From  under  our  brightening  awning 

We  wheel  in  a  diverse  flight : 
Yet  the  hands  we  unclasp,  as  our  dances 

Sweep  off  to  the  left  and  the  right, 
Are  but  loosed  on  the  verge  of  the  dawning 

To  join  on  the  verge  of  the  night. 


210 


p 


PASTORAL 

AN-imbucd 
Tempe  wood, 

Pretty  player's  sporting-place  ; 
Tcmpe  wood's 
Solitude's 
Everywhere  a  courting-placc. 
Kiss  me,  sweet 
Gipsy  fleet, 
Though  a  kissed  maid  hath  her  red  ; 
Kisses  grow — 
Trust  me  so — 
Faster  than  they're  gathered ! 
I  will  flute  a  tunc 

On  the  pipes  of  ivory  ; 
All  long  noon 

Piping  of  a  melody ; 
A  merry,  merry,  merry,  merry, 
Merry,  merry  melody. 
Dance,  ho  !  foot  it  so  !  Feat  fleets  the  melody  ! 

Let  the  wise 

Say,  youth  dies ; — 
'Tis  for  pleasure's  mending,  Sweet  ! 

Kisses  arc 

Costlier  far. 
That  they  have  an  ending,  Sweet ! 

Half  a  kiss's 

Dainty  bliss  is 
From  the  day  of  kiss-no-more  ; 

211  r2 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

When  we  shall, 

Roseal 
Lass,  do  this  and  this  no  more ! 
And  we  pipe  a  tune 

On  the  pipes  of  ivory ; 
All  long  noon 

Fluting  of  a  melody : — 
A  merry,  merry,  merry,  merry. 

Merry,  merry  melody. 
Dance,  ho  !  trip  it  so  !  Feat  fleets  the  melody ! 

My  love  must 

Be  to  trust, 
While  you  safely  fold  me  close : 

Yours  will  smile 

A  kissing-while, 
For  the  hours  I  hold  you  close. 

Maiden  gold ! 

Clipping  bold 
Here  the  truest  mintage  is : 

Lips  will  bear 

But,  I  swear. 
In  the  press  their  vintages ! 
I  will  flute  a  tune 

On  the  pipes  of  ivory ; 
All  long  noon 

Piping  of  a  melody : — 
A  merry,  merry,  merry,  merry, 

Merry,  merry  melody. 
Dance,  ho  !  foot  it  so  !  Feat  fleets  the  melody ! 


212 


PAST  THINKING  OF 
SOLOMON 

Remember  thy  Creator  in  the  days  oj  thy  youth,  he j ore 
the  years  draw  nigh  oj  which  thou  shalt  say  :  They  -please 
me  not  ;  hejore  the  sun,  and  the  light,  and  the  moon,  and 
the  stars  be  darkened,  and  the  clouds  return  after  the  rain. 

ECCLESUSTES. 


W 


ISE-UNTO-HELL  Ecclesiast, 
Who  siev'dst  life  to  the  gritted  last ! 


This  thy  sting,  thy  darkness,  Mage — 
Cloud  upon  sun,  upon  youth  age  ? 

Now  is  come  a  darker  thing, 
And  is  come  a  colder  sting, 

Unto  us,  who  find  the  womb 
Opes  on  the  courtyard  of  the  tomb. 

Now  in  this  fuliginous 
City  of  flesh  our  sires  for  us 

Darkly  built,  the  sun  at  prime 
Is  liidden,  and  betwixt  the  time 

Of  day  and  night  is  variance  none, 
Who  know  not  altern  moon  and  sun  ; 


213 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

Whose  deposed  heaven  through  dungeon-bars 
Looks  down  bhnded  of  its  stars. 

Yea,  in  the  days  of  youth,  God  wot, 
Kg  -v  we  say :  They  please  me  not. 


214 


A  DEAD  ASTRONOMER 

STEPHEN    PERRY,    S.J. 

STARRY  amorist, starward  gone. 
Thou  art — what  thou  didst  gaze  upon  ! 
Passed  through  thy  golden  garden's  bars. 
Thou  seest  the  Gardener  of  the  Stars. 

She,  about  whose  mooned  brows 
Seven  stars  make  seven  glows, 
Seven  lights  for  seven  woes ; 
She,  like  thine  own  Galaxy, 
All  lustres  in  one  purity  : — 
What  said'st  thou,  Astronomer, 
U'hen  thou  did'st  discover  i?)^r  r* 
When  thy  hand  its  tube  let  fall, 
Thou  found'st  the  fairest  Star  of  all ! 


21! 


CHEATED  ELSIE 

ELSIE  was  a  maiden  fair 
As  the  sun 
Shone  upon : 
Born  to  teach  her  swains  despair 
By  smihng  on  them  every  one ; 
Born  to  win  all  hearts  to  her 
Just  because  herself  had  none ; 
All  the  day  she  had  no  care, 
For  she  was  a  maiden  fair 
As  the  sun 
Shone  upon, 
Heartless  as  the  brooks  that  run. 

All  the  maids,  with  envy  tart, 
Sneering  said, '  She  has  no  heart.* 
All  the  youths,  with  bitter  smart. 
Sighing  said, '  She  has  no  heart ! ' 

Could  she  care 
For  their  sneers  or  their  despair 
When  she  was  a  maiden  fair 

As  the  sun 

Shone  upon, 
Heartless  as  the  brooks  that  run  ? 

But  one  day  whenas  she  stood 

In  a  wood 
Haunted  by  the  fairy  brood. 
Did  she  view,  or  dream  she  viewed 

In  a  vision's 

Wild  misprisions, 


216 


Fairies. 


Elsie. 


Pedlar. 


Elsie. 


CHEATED  ELSIE 

How  a  pedlar,  dry  and  rude 
As  a  crook'd  branch  taking  flesh, 
Caught  the  spirit  in  a  mesh, 
Singing  of — '  What  is't  ye  lack  ? ' 

\\  izard-pack 

On  twisted  back, 
Still  he  sang, '  What  is't  ye  lack  ? 

*  Lack  ye  land  or  lack  ye  gold. 
What  I  give,  I  give  unsold  ; 
Lack  ye  wisdom,  lack  ye  beauty, 

To  your  suit  he 
Gives  unpaid,  the  pedlar  old  !  * 

Beware,  beware  !  the  gifts  he  gives 

One  pays  for,  sweetheart,  while  one  Hves ! 

What  is  it  the  maidens  say 
That  I  lack  ? 

By  this  bright  day, 
Can  so  fair  a  maiden  lack  ? 
Maid  so  sweet 
Should  be  complete. 

Yet  a  thing  they  say  I  lack. 

In  thy  pack, — 

Pedlar,  tell— 
Hast  thou  ever  a  heart  to  sell  ? 

217 


Pedlar. 

Elsie. 
Pedlar. 

Elsie. 
Fairies. 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 


Yea,  a  heart  I  have,  as  tender 
As  the  mood  of  evening  air. 


Elsie. 


Fairies. 


Name  thy  price ! 


The  price,  by  Sorrow ! 
Only  is,  the  heart  to  wear. 


Not  great  the  price,  as  was  my  fear. 


So  cheap  a  price  was  ne'er  so  dear. 

Beware,  beware, 

O  rash  and  fair  ! 

The  gifts  he  gives. 
Sweetheart,  one  pays  for  while  one  lives ! 

Scarce  the  present  did  she  take. 
When  the  heart  began  to  ache. 


Ah,  what  is  this  ?  Take  back  thy  gift ! 

I  had  not,  and  I  knew  no  lack  ; 
Now  I  have,  I  lack  for  ever ! 


The  gifts  he  gives,  he  takes  not  back. 


2l8 


CHEATED  ELSIE 

Elsie. 

Ah  !  why  the  present  did  I  take, 

And  knew  not  that  a  heart  would  ache  ? 

Fairies. 

Ache  !  and  is  that  all  thy  sorrow  ? — 
Beware,  beware — a  heart  will  break ! 


219 


THE  FAIR  INCONSTANT 

DOST  thou  still  hope  thou  shalt  be  fair, 
When  no  more  fair  to  me  ? 
Or  those  that  by  thee  taken  were 
Hold  their  captivity  ? 
Is  this  thy  confidence  ?  No,  no  ; 
Trust  it  not ;  it  can  not  be  so. 

But  thou  too  late,  too  late  shalt  find 
'Twas  I  that  made  thee  fair  ; 

Thy  beauties  never  from  thy  mind 
But  from  my  loving  were ; 

And  those  delights  that  did  thee  stole 

Confessed  the  vicinage  of  my  soul. 

The  rosy  reflex  of  my  heart 

Did  thy  pale  cheek  attire ; 
And  what  I  was,  not  what  thou  art, 

Did  gazers-on  admire. 
Go,  and  too  late  thou  shalt  confess 


I  looked  thee  into  loveliness ! 


220 


THREATENED  TEARS 

Do  not  loose  those  rains  thy  wet 
Eyes,  my  Fair,  unsurely  threat ; 
Do  not,  Sweet,  do  not  so ! 
Thou  canst  not  have  a  single  woe, 
But  this  sad  and  doubtful  weather 
Overcasts  us  both  together. 
In  the  aspect  of  those  known  eyes 
My  soul 's  a  captain  weatherwise. 
Ah  me  !  what  presages  it  sees 
In  those  watery  Hyades. 


221 


THE  HOUSE  OF  SORROWS* 


o 


F  the  white  purity 
I  They  wrought  my  wedding-dress, 
Inwoven  silverly — 
For  tears,  as  I  do  guess. 
Oh,  wJiy  did  they  with  tears  inweave  my  marriage- 
dress  ? 

A  girl,  I  did  espouse 

Destiny,  grief,  and  fears  ; 
The  love  of  Austria's  house 
And  its  ancestral  years 
I  learned  ;  and  my  salt  eyes  grew  erudite  in  tears. 

Devote  our  tragic  line — 
One  to  his  rebel's  aim, 
One  to  his  ignorant  brine. 
One  to  the  eyeless  flame  : 
Who  should  be  skilled  to  weep  but  I,  O  Christ's  dear 
Dame  ? 

[•in  the  opening  (tanzas  the  Empress  Elizabeth  of  Austria  addresses 
first  Our  Lady,  then  the  '  Dark  Fool  '  Death,  and  finally  the  Son  of 
Sorrows,  in  allusion  to  the  griefs  of  her  own  and  her  husband's  line  :  the 
shooting  of  Maximilian  of  Mexico,  her  sister's  burning  at  the  Paris  Bazar 
de  la  Charite,  the  drowning  of  the  Archduke  John  and  of  the  mad 
King  of  Bavaria,  and  the  tragedy  of  the  Crown  Prince  Rudolph.  Her 
own  assassination  was  the  immediate  occasion  of  these  verses  ;  and  the 
traditional  offering  of  her  wedding-wreath  to  a  Madonna-shrine  and  the 
making  of  her  wedding-gown  into  priestly  vestments  elucidate  other 
references  in  the  text.] 

222 


THE  HOUSE  OF  SORROWS 

Give  one  more  to  the  fire, 
One  more  for  water  keep  : 

0  Death,  wilt  thou  not  tire  ? 
Still  Austria  must  thou  reap  ? 

Can  I  have  plummetless  tears,  that  still  thou  bidd'st 
'  Weep,  weep  1 '  ? 

No — thou  at  length  with  me 

Too  far,  Dark  Fool,  hast  gone ! 
One  costly  cruelty 
Voids  thy  dominion  : 
I  am  drained  to  the  uttermost  tear  :  O  Rudolph,  O  my 
son ! 

Take  this  woof  of  sorrows, 
Son  of  all  Women's  Tears  ! 

1  am  not  for  the  morrows, 

I  am  dead  with  the  dead  years. 
Lo,  I  vest  Thee,  Christ,  with  my  woven  tears ! 

My  bridal  wreath  take  thou, 

Mary  !  Take  Thou,  O  Christ, 
My  bridal  garment !  Now 

Is  all  my  fate  sufficed. 
And,  robed  and  garlanded,  the  victim  sacrificed. 

II 

The  Son  of  Weeping  heard, 

The  gift  benignly  saw  ; 
The  Women's  Pitier  heard. 


223 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS 

Together,  by  hid  law, 
The  life-gashed  heart,  the  assassin's  healing  poniard, 
draw. 

Too  long  that  consummation 

The  obdurate  seasons  thwart ; 
Too  long  were  the  sharp  consolation 

And  her  breast  apart ; — 
The  remedy  of  steel  has  gone  home  to  her  sick  heart. 

Her  breast,  dishabited, 

Revealed,  her  heart  above, 
A  little  blot  of  red, — 

Death's  reverent  sign  to  approve 
He  had  sealed  up  that  royal  tomb  of  martyred  love. 

Now,  Death,  if  thou  wouldst  show 

Some  ruth  still  left  in  store, 
Guide  thou  the  armed  blow 

To  strike  one  bosom  more, 
Where  any  blow  were  pity,  to  this  it  struck  before  ! 


224 


INSENTIENCE 

O  SWEET  is  Love,  and  sweet  is  Lack  ! 
But  is  there  any  charm 
When  Lack  from  round  the  neck  of  Love 
Drops  her  languid  arm  ? 

\\^ear7, 1  no  longer  love, 

Weary,  no  more  lack  ; 
O  for  a  pang,  that  listless  Loss 
Might  wake,  and,  with  a  playmate's  voice. 

Call  the  tired  Love  back  ! 


225 


ENVOY 

O,  songs,  for  ended  is  our  brief,  sweet  play ; 
■w  Go,  children  of  swift  joy  and  tardy  sorrow  : 
■*■  And  some  are  sung,  and  that  was  yesterday, 
And  some  unsung,  and  that  may  be  to-morrow. 

Go  forth  ;  and  if  it  be  o'er  stony  way, 

Old  joy  can  lend  what  newer  grief  must  borrow : 
And  it  was  sweet,  and  that  was  yesterday, 

And  sweet  is  sweet,  though  purchased  with  sorrow. 

Go,  songs,  and  come  not  back  from  your  far  way : 
And  if  men  ask  you  why  ye  smile  and  sorrow, 

Tell  them  ye  grieve,  for  your  hearts  know  To-day, 
Tell  them  ye  smile,  for  your  eyes  know  To-morrow. 


226 


i 


J  .  ^.s^- 


NOTE 

'  SISTER  songs:  This  was  first  called  'Amphic7- 
pellon  :  Wrought  and  upbrimmed  for  Two  Sisters, 
with  an  Inscription,'  as  may  be  seen  in  the  Facsimile, 
which  shows  also  the  Cross  with  which  the  Poet  was 
accustomed  to  crest  his  Manuscript. 


«  .         '         (1  L      ^ 


WoCh/ 


OAV 


The  original  edition  contained  the  following  Preface : 

'  This  poem,  though  new  in  the  sense  of  being  now  (1895) 
for  the  first  time  printed,  was  written  some  four  years  ago, 
about  the  same  date  as  the  Hound  of  Heaven.  .  .  . 

'  One  image  in  the  Proem  was  an  unconscious  plagiarism 
from  the  beautiful  image  in  Mr  Patmore's  St  Valentine's  Day  : 

O  baby  Spring, 

That  fiutter'st  sudden  'neath  the  breast  of  Earth, 

A  month  before  the  birth  ! 

Finding  I  could  not  disengage  it  without  injury  to  the 
passage  in  which  it  is  embedded,  I  have  preferred  to  leave 
it,  with  this  acknowledgenient  to  a  Poet  rich  enough  to  lend 
to  the  poor. — francis  Thompson.' 


Printed  in  England  at  the  Anchor  Press. 


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